


Come and Find Me

by bashert



Category: Bourne Legacy (2012), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Clint Barton is Aaron Cross, Crossover, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-08
Updated: 2013-07-20
Packaged: 2017-11-24 03:15:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 23,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/629750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bashert/pseuds/bashert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a lot that they don't know about Clint.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I draw you close with every breath

It wasn’t a secret that Clint Barton was kind of a mystery to his fellow Avengers.

It was frustrating to Tony, in particular, because he considered himself an open book, and thought they should all follow his lead.

“We’re a team! How are we supposed to trust each other if we don’t know anything about each other?” Tony had complained. Natasha had rolled her eyes, not offering up any dark, deep secrets about herself, Bruce had sort of shrugged, figuring there wasn’t much more they needed to learn about him, and Clint had stayed very quiet.

He didn’t need to trust them. Not completely, anyway. He didn’t trust many people. There were things they didn’t know about him, and he wasn’t in any hurry to enlighten them.

For example, his name wasn’t Clint Barton. More importantly, it wasn’t the first time he had changed his name. In fact, it was the third name he had gone by.

They didn't know that Director Fury had found him in a bungalow somewhere on a remote beach in Indonesia, and that when they found him he wasn't alone. His name was Aaron Cross at the time, but it was agreed by all parties that if he was to join SHIELD he would be safer, _she_ would be safer, if he went by another name.

They certainly didn't know about Marta, about how every decision he made, he made to ensure her safety. Joining SHIELD, that had been about her too. It had been a calculated risk on his part to trust another organization. His experience made him wary of trusting anyone but her, but Fury had promised her safety, and showed him the intelligence that proved that the net was closing in on him. Outcome and Byer- that asshole-were only a few steps behind, days really. He could have a grabbed her and ran, but they would be running, always, and he didn't want that for her. He didn't want her to have to be constantly looking over her shoulder.

Still.

Leaving her behind was the hardest thing he had ever done. He agreed that it was safer for her to stay hidden for a while longer, and he had Fury promise to keep someone with her. It was one of his non-negotiables. She would be safe. Period. They also agreed that when they could, Fury would arrange for the newly christened Clint to be able to visit her in whatever safe place they had her holed up in.

The postcards were for the in between. For those long stretches when meeting in person was too difficult or dangerous. Four words. "And because love battles." It had been her idea. Marta's favorite poem. Pablo Neruda. She had given him a copy and a searing kiss when he left with Fury.

Every three weeks, he made her promise, like clockwork, she would send a card. Cards featuring the Eiffel Tower postmarked from Brazil. The Coliseum postmarked from Albania. He knew she never sent a card from her actual location; she was at least a few days ahead of the cards at any given moment. But they had to come. Promptly. Every three weeks.

“If three weeks and one day pass and I don’t have a postcard,” he had promised her. “Then nothing on this earth will stop me from getting to you.”

But the Avengers didn't know about any of this. The name Marta meant nothing. Aaron Cross was a stranger. Clint was quiet, hardworking, and a complete mystery.

Not a complete mystery. Not to everyone. Natasha knew, but if there was one other person that Clint trusted other than Marta, it was Natasha. She was like a steel vault. They had gotten drunk after their first successful mission and he had gotten uncharacteristically chatty. He told Natasha about Marta, about how he had hidden her away to keep her safe, and how much he missed her, _God did he miss her_ , and about how worried he was about her.

"I just...what if someone took her to get to me? Hurt her to get to me? Outcome I could handle. They targeted her because of her. But someone coming after her because of Hawkeye? Because of Clint Barton? That can't happen. I will not allow that to happen."

Natasha, equally drunk, had promised to keep Marta a secret. Promised to keep the postcards secret, and the reunions Fury arranged every so often to keep Barton in line. "He knows I go a little crazy otherwise," Clint had told Natasha once as he packed his bags to meet up with Marta in St. Petersburg.

She had been waiting for him in a small hotel with only a handful of rooms, one of which was occupied by her SHIELD companion. Clint gave him a nod when the SHIELD agent had glanced out into the hallway when he heard footsteps and three knocks on Marta's door. The agent nodded back and disappeared into his own room. Marta’s door swung open a second later and she launched herself at him, wrapping her legs around his waist as he carried her into the room, kicking the door shut behind him.

"You are supposed to ask for the safe word," he admonished halfheartedly.

"I'm sorry," she said between kisses. "I've just, mmm, God, missed you."

That was their last meeting before Loki. Before he was turned. He shuddered to think about what would have happened to Marta if she had been near him during that. He wanted to believe that he could never have hurt her, no matter what, or _who_ , was in control of his body. He had made a series of decisions then, and before anything else, while they were still on the airship, he made Natasha promise to be the one to find Marta if anything happened to him.

"If something like this ever happens again," he told her. "Find Marta, okay? Make sure she's okay. Make sure if I'm not in control of myself, that I don't go anywhere near her? Got it? I'm serious, Tasha. I go nowhere near her. Not until you are sure. Not until it’s one hundred percent safe."

Only when things settled down, after they defeated Loki and ate shawarma, and Tony offered everyone a place to stay in Stark Tower, did another postcard come.

It had the same four words, but on the bottom in her nearly illegible scrawl she had written, "How would I ever know if you weren't okay?" Clint had frozen, able to feel her frustration and anger and fear through the card, and wanting, more than anything, to have her with him. Natasha noticed him stop, as had Tony, but it was Steve who had spoken first.

"Everything okay, Clint?" He asked.

"Is she okay?" Natasha's voice held an odd, out of place, note of worry.

"She?" Tony had chimed in, his interest peeked. "She who?"

"None of your business," Clint answered, crumbling the card and stalking out of the room.

* * *

 

Clint was quiet the next day. He kept running his finger over the edge of the postcard in his pocket.

At lunch he half listened to an argument between Bruce and Tony about some virus or another. Marta would love this type of conversation, finally getting some use out of that big brain of hers. His reasons for keeping her away were getting harder to remember. After all, Tony kept Pepper close. He told Clint that keeping her close was his way of keeping her safe. Clint's way had been to send Marta as far away as possible, and while he still wasn't convinced that Tony's method was keeping Pepper as safe as Marta, he was at least able to admit that Tony seemed happier than he certainly was.

And he just missed her, damn it.

He missed her slow, crooked smile. He missed her hand warm in his. He missed her teasing voice and the feel of her curled up around him when he woke up in the morning. He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t hear Natasha call his name, but when another voice, a painfully familiar voice, called out, “Aaron?” he whipped around in his seat.

"Aaron? Who is Aaron?" Steve whispered to Bruce, who merely shrugged.

"Doc," Clint breathed, and he was by her side in seconds, wrapping his arms tightly around her and breathing in the smell of her hair.

She was there.

She was safe.

And he wasn't sure why she was there (although he had a feeling it had something to do with Natasha), but he found that he didn't really care all that much.

“Hey,” she whispered, and he swooped down and pressed a hard, desperate kiss to her lips.“Thank God you’re okay,” she murmured when he finally pulled away. He cupped her cheek in his palm and smiled.

“Are you okay? You’re okay, right?” He asked, and she jerked her head a couple of times.

“I’m good, I’m fine. I was just worried about you,” she answered. He heard someone, Tony probably, clear their throat behind them and with her hand tucked firmly in his, he turned around to introduce her to everyone.

“Dr. Shearing?” Bruce asked, sounding slightly surprised.

“Dr. Banner!” Marta exclaimed. “It’s nice to see you again!”

“You know her too?” Tony asked. “Does everyone know her but me?”

“I thought…well the rumors were,” Bruce fumbled with his words, and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Forgive me, Dr. Shearing, but I thought you were either dead or a wanted fugitive?”

“In the words of Mark Twain, ‘Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated,’” Marta answered with a grin, giving Clint’s hand a squeeze.

“I can see, and for that I’m very relieved,” Bruce said. “But…” He looked to Clint and trailed off.

“The thing is, the rumor was our Clint here was a eunuch, or maybe considering the seminary, having never even glanced in the way of a female, even when they were throwing themselves at our feet in the wake of our saving the world and all,” Tony started. “And then all of a sudden a beautiful, maybe fugitive, allegedly dead woman- haven’t cleared that one up yet- comes in here and Clint’s all smiles and kisses, and we’re all just a little confused about who you are.”

“This is Marta,” Clint began. “She’s my…” He struggled to put into words what Marta was. Girlfriend sounded too juvenile. Partner sounded too clinical. If he were feeling sappy, he would answer that Marta was his everything, but he knew if he said that he would never hear the end of it from Tony.

“She’s your girl?” Steve supplied.

“Yes,” Clint answered gratefully. “Marta, this is everyone.” He waved a hand over the group.

Tony stepped forward, taking Marta’s free hand in his and bringing it up to his mouth for a kiss.

“Lovely to meet you,” he said as Clint scowled.

“Dr. Shearing is a brilliant virologist,” Bruce told Tony.

“Not anymore,” Marta chimed in. “Now I’m on the run professionally.” This caused several confused looks, but Clint didn’t care about whether or not the rest of the team was caught up to speed on his and Marta’s past. He was four seconds away from pulling Marta from the room to go spend some time alone in his, and he knew that she could sense him fidgeting beside her.

“Maybe I can explain, while you two go catch up?” Natasha offered, and Clint nodded enthusiastically.

“Thank you,” he said, tugging on Marta’s hand and pulling her to the elevator. They were alone in the elevator for all of two and a half seconds when Clint attached himself to her, pressing desperate kisses to her lips, and tangling his fingers through her hair.

“It’s so good to see you,” he muttered, and the elevator dinged signaling his floor and they tumbled out into the hallway. “What are you doing here?” He led the way to his room.

“Natasha talked to Fury, told him she thought it was time I was brought in,” Marta explained as Clint slammed the door closed behind them. He wasted no time at all pulling off Marta’s jacket.

“I’m sorry,” Clint stopped for a moment in his task to undress Marta, and took her hand, running his thumb over her soft skin. “I’ve been so stupid. I was just worried about you. I thought that keeping you away was keeping you safe.”

“I don’t care about that,” Marta answered. “I feel safe with you. I just want to be wherever you are. No matter where that is, or how dangerous it is.” He kissed her; hard and desperately, he tried to pour everything he was feeling so that it could fill her up, so that she would know how much he loved her.

“You’re going to stay,” he decided. His voice was firm, but she wasn’t arguing. “Here. With me.”

“Do you need to check? With the others? Is that okay that I stay here?”

“I don’t care if it’s not,” Clint answered, leaving a trail of hot kisses down her neck. “You’re going to stay here with me. Or we’re going to go somewhere else. I don’t want to be without you anymore. No more talking.” 

"Yes sir," Marta giggled slightly and then all the thoughts racing through her brain raced right out of there, and all she could think about was him. He was there. In front of her, and for the first time in the longest time, he didn't have to leave again in the morning. 

 

 

 


	2. We can find each other this way I believe

Tony Stark did not know the meaning of being quiet.

But he was listening to Natasha explain who the beautiful woman was that had disappeared with Clint, uncharacteristically quiet.

All those questions that Clint had asked about Tony keeping Pepper close, about whether or not Tony thought that keeping an eye on Pepper kept her safe enough. Tony had been irritated by those questions, assuming, incorrectly it seemed, that Clint was implying that Pepper wasn’t safe, and that Pepper was a weakness for Tony.

Pepper _was_ a weakness for Tony. He wasn’t stupid. He knew loving her put both of them in more danger. But it seemed that Clint had asked those questions because he had a weakness too. And he wanted desperately to be able to justify keeping Marta close by, instead of hiding her away as he had been doing.

“He was trying to keep her safe the only way he knew how,” Natasha said. “If something happened to her…” Tony could understand that too. He wasn’t sure what he would do if something happened to Pepper. He was too selfish to keep Pepper away to keep her safe, and he admired Clint a little more for putting Marta’s safety before his own happiness.

It was strange to think that Clint had a life before joining the Avengers, and that life had included a woman who, according to Natasha, Clint would die for.

They were all still wrapping their minds around Clint being in love when the two appeared in the living room, Clint’s arm wrapped around Marta’s waist, and a grin plastered on both of their faces. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had been happening.

At dinner, Clint’s hand never left Marta’s as their intertwined fingers lay on the table. It was cute, Tony thought, and also kind of nauseating.

Pepper had never been big on PDA’s, but the way that Clint’s hand lazily draped over Marta’s, casually, intimately, made Tony wish that her strict sense of decorum would loosen up.

“I assume we’ve just gained another houseguest?” Tony asked.

“I hope that’s okay,” Marta was quick to jump in.

“We have,” Clint said firmly. He left no room for argument in his tone.

Tony shrugged easily. It didn’t bother him any. He had gone from living alone in a giant house, to living in a giant high rise, this time practically brimming with people. Well, some were people.

They also had a Hulk.

And a Norse god.

Tony doubted that the good doctor Shearing could do nearly as much damage as the Hulk could do when something set him off. Besides, she was a hell of lot nicer to look at than Capsicle, and seemed to be less terrifying than Natasha.

“Welcome to our tower, ma’am,” Steve said politely. Marta blushed slightly.

“I can’t promise much about this place,” Tony chimed in. “But it’s never boring around here, that’s for sure.”

“I don’t know about that,” Clint spoke up. “But I think Marta could use some boring for a little while.”

* * *

 

It was boring, actually.

Although she had a feeling that Tony would find that insulting, so she kept her thoughts to herself.

It was only boring compared to what Marta had been used to. Compared to moving every few days and making sure that she sent her postcard to Aaron, (no, Clint. He was Clint now. That was also hard to get used to), being in the Tower was fairly uneventful.

She would help Bruce in the lab during the day, and then in the evening they would all gather for dinner like the strange, dysfunctional family they kind of were, swapping stories from the day and arguing good naturedly. And then after dinner, Clint would twine his fingers in hers and lead the way to their bedroom.

It might be uneventful, but _good God_ , was Marta happy.

She loved working with Bruce and Tony, when he wasn’t off saving the world, in the lab, the three of them pouring over some problem or equation, and she loved spending her nights with Clint, his strong arms wrapped around her body and the sound of his even breathing in her ear.

Then, again, it wasn’t always uneventful.

There was always something. Some cache of weapons found in the deserts of Libya, or a hostage situation in Budapest.

She worried, _yes_ , of course she did. She worried every time he left the Tower that he might get hurt or worse, but after every mission, he came sweeping in, pulling her to him and pressing a long, deep kiss onto her lips.

“Miss me, Doc?” He’d ask with a crooked smile, and she would remember how to breathe again.

On those evenings, they skipped the big dinner with the rest of the group. On those nights, Marta would run her fingers lightly over Clint’s bruises and cuts, and he would stop her hand with his and give her fingers a kiss.

“I’m okay,” he would tell her again and again, and then he would prove to her how okay he was, ending with the two of them in a boneless puddle in the middle of their bed, sheets twisted around them, and Clint’s bruised and hurting body tangled with Marta’s.

Things were so good, that she forgot that things had ever been bad. She had forgotten about the LARX agents, and about the burning of Outcome. She had forgotten that she still couldn’t show her face in public, and that there were still people who would shoot her, no questions asked, if they happened to see her.

In the Tower, surrounded by Clint, who would die for her, and by others who would protect her at all costs, she had forgotten that technically she was still a fugitive.

She forgot about Eric Byer.

Until he showed up.

* * *

 

Clint was going over plans with Tony, a hidden stockpile of Stark weapons in a warehouse in the cold, tundra of Siberia when he heard JARVIS announce that someone was entering the lobby.

The parts of the Tower that the Avengers occupied were at the top, accessible only by a separate elevator and such high-tech security that it made even the Situation Room at the White House look like child’s play.

“Sir, a man is asking for you,” JARVIS said.

“Lots of people ask for me,” Tony replied, shooting a grin at Clint. “I’m busy. Who is it?”

“Retired Colonel Eric Byer, US Air Force, sir,” JARVIS answered. Clint froze.

“Where’s Marta?” Clint asked, his voice tight. Tony looked confused.

“I thought she was down in the lab with Bruce, why?”

“I need to get to her,” Clint replied, and he leapt to his feet so quickly that the chair flipped over. He ran to the elevator, pressing the button furiously over and over again. “Damn it. Forget it, I’ll take the stairs.” Tony jumped up to follow him, as Clint threw open the door to the stairs and began to race down them.

“Clint, what’s going on? JARVIS? Who is this Byer?”

“He’s the one after us, after her,” Clint answered as he threw open another door. “He’s the one who made the call to burn Outcome.”

“What’s he doing here?” Tony asked.

“I. Don’t. Know,” Clint responded and he rushed into the lab to find Bruce there alone. “Where’s Marta?” His voice was more panicked this time.

“Pepper and Steve asked her if she wanted to get some lunch,” Bruce answered with a small shrug. “They were just going to run over to the restaurant across the street.” Clint hadn’t wanted Marta to feel like a prisoner in the Tower, so it had been agreed that if she donned a wig, or a pair of glasses, she could venture outside, as long as she didn’t stray too far away from the building, and as long as someone who could protect her was with her.

They teased Clint about being overprotective, and Tony had made some caveman jokes, but Clint didn’t care. Marta’s safety came first, and she had seen enough to know that he wasn’t being paranoid. She was more than happy to limit her wanderings.

“Damn it,” Clint closed his eyes. He tasted fear and adrenaline in the back of his mouth, and he felt slightly sick. He shook the feeling away. It would do Marta no good to panic. She was okay, JARVIS was keeping an eye on Byer, and Steve was with her. He’d keep her safe. She was okay. She was fine. He kept repeating it until it calmed him down slightly.

“I’m calling Pepper,” Tony said. “I’ll go down and talk to this Byer. I’ll keep him occupied. We’ll get Marta back safely into the building.”

“What’s going on?” Bruce asked.

“Pep? It’s Tony, where are you?” Clint heard as Tony headed towards the elevator.

“I’m coming down,” Clint said.

“No,” Tony covered the mouth piece and shook his head vehemently. “Go to the back entrance. I’m going to tell Pepper to head straight to the back.” Clint swore, but took off to the back staircase. He was feeling too antsy to take the elevator.

They had become too complacent. He should have known. He should have known that Byer would pop back up at some point. This was why he hadn’t wanted Marta here. This is why he wanted her stashed away in a safe place in the middle of nowhere. Somewhere where Byer couldn’t find her, wouldn’t have even thought to have looked.

He raced down. Bruce was only a few steps behind him, confused, but keeping quiet.

“JARVIS? Update?”

“Mr. Stark has met Colonel Byer the lobby,” JARVIS reported. “He’s leading him back to his office.”

“Any sign of Marta?” Clint asked.

“They are leaving the restaurant. Colonel Byer, should he turn at least 100 degrees to the right would have a clear view of their approach,” JARVIS replied. Clint felt helpless, and he hated feeling helpless.

It felt like an eternity, with Clint asking JARVIS every few seconds for an update, before the back door beeped and opened, and he caught a glimpse of Steve’s arm wrapped protectively around Marta’s shoulders as he led her to the door.

When she looked up and saw Clint standing there, she flew through the door and into his arms.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered, smoothing his hand over her dark hair. She was trembling, and he wrapped his arms around her tighter. He caught Steve’s eye. “Thank you,” he mouthed, and Steve nodded.

“We should get upstairs,” Pepper said after a moment. “It’s safer upstairs.” It was Clint’s turn to wrap his arm around Marta protectively, and with Bruce leading the way, and Steve trailing a step behind, they got to the elevator and back up to their living quarters.

They huddled in the living room area, Marta’s hand clenched tightly around Clint’s, until the elevator opened and Tony stepped in.

“He’s gone,” Tony said.

“What was he doing here?” Marta asked.

“He wants the Avengers help,” Tony said with a small shake of his head. “He wants us to help track down some a couple of rogue agents and a scientist. Apparently you are very dangerous, Dr. Shearing. A terrorist, he told me.”

“You’ve got to be joking,” Clint swore under his breath.

“I think this is good,” Bruce spoke up.

“What?” Steve spoke up. “How?”

“Keep your enemies close,” Marta said, meeting Bruce’s eye and nodding. “If you help with their search…”

“You can keep an eye on them,” Pepper finished. “You can know what their plan is, where they’re looking, how close they are. You’re right, Bruce.”

“What did you tell him?” Clint asked.

“I said I would talk it over with the rest of you,” Tony answered. “So I’ll just call him and I’ll tell him that we’d love to help. You’ll have to sit this one out, Hawkeye.”

“Sounds good,” all Clint wanted now was to get Marta alone, and make sure she was okay. He pulled her to her feet.

“Thank you,” Marta said as Clint placed a hand on the small of her back and led her to the elevators. “All of you, for everything.” Clint pressed a kiss to her temple when the doors slid shut, and tangled his hands in her hair.

“That was too close, Doc,” he said.

“When Tony called and told Pepper that Byer was here, I just…I was terrified,” Marta said.

“You and me both,” Clint murmured. “This is good, right? Byer needing the Avenger’s help? He wouldn’t ask for help unless he was desperate.”

“It’s good, it’s a good thing,” he assured her.

“I feel safe here,” she said suddenly. “Pepper and Steve? They made sure I was okay, they made sure I was safe. We can trust them, I know we can. Maybe they can stop Byer? Maybe they’ll stop looking for us?”

It was all she wanted, and Clint wanted more than anything to be able to give it to her.

“Maybe,” he said.

And he hoped he was right.


	3. You don't know it's right until it's wrong

“He knows I’m here,” Clint said when they sat down to discuss the Byer problem. “He has to. I might not do interviews, but there was a huge amount of press after the whole Loki thing. He had to have spotted me. He has to know that I’m here.” He had tried hard to stay away from the media, trying to lay low, but Fury had reassured him that even if Byer and the rest of them thought that maybe Aaron Cross was now Clint Barton, they couldn’t prove it, and they wouldn’t risk the wrath of the Avengers and SHIELD.

Clint Barton might be off limits, but Marta Shearing was not.

And Byer was not an idiot. If he thought that Aaron Cross was possibly hiding in plain sight in Avengers Tower, he knew that Marta Shearing had to be somewhere near. It was exactly why Clint had wanted to keep Marta as far away from New York as possible.

“He can’t prove that it’s you,” Bruce pointed out. “We try to keep you and Natasha away from the cameras. At most, he might have caught some of the footage from the attack, but you know what that footage looked like.”

“Besides, last thing he knew Aaron Cross was holed up in some third world country in a shack on a beach. He might have thought that that Avenger guy kind of looked like Aaron Cross, but it’s too crazy of a thought to entertain for too long,” Natasha said. “It’s quite the leap.”

“He knows, I don’t know how, but he knows. He was scoping out the place, not asking for our help. He knows I’m here, which means he knows that Marta is either here, or we know where she is.” Clint swore under his breath. “This is why I wanted to keep her away.”

“She’s safe here,” Steve spoke up. “She’s safer here than anywhere else. He can’t get to her here. We won’t let that happen.”

Clint got up to pace. He fought the urge to check on Marta. He knew that she was okay. She was in the lab.

Byer’s appearance had shaken her, and he had reassured her, and only when she had finally calmed down, only when she was asleep, his arms wrapped tightly around her, did he realize that Byer wasn’t desperate.

It wasn’t desperation that had brought Byer to the Avengers’ doorstep, it was a hunch.

A correct hunch as it turned out.

He hadn’t slept. He had laid awake listening to the comforting sound of Marta’s even breathing, and trying to map out a plan to take down Byer once and for all.

In the morning, he insisted on walking Marta to the lab.

“I’ll be okay,” she had reassured, giving his hand a squeeze and flashing him a smile. “I’m not going to go anywhere today. I’m perfectly content holing myself up in the lab all day.” He had given her a kiss, waited until the door clicked close behind her, and gathered the Avengers together for a meeting.

Byer was a loose end that Clint couldn’t afford to leave hanging any longer.

“Let’s just let Bruce get angry and do his thing,” Tony suggested. “Byer won’t stand a chance.”

Bruce began shaking his head, but Clint spoke first. “I don’t just want to get rid of Byer. I want to clear Marta’s name. I want to gather all the information we can on Byer, on Outcome and Treadstone, and I want them shut down,” Clint insisted. “There have to be files. They had to have kept records. There has to be enough to implicate these guys. There has to be enough to take them down.”

He thinks of that first car ride when he asked Marta if she could yell loud enough, fast enough, that they wouldn’t be afraid of going after her. They weren’t in a position then to try anything; they were too busy trying to save their lives. But that wasn’t the case now. Now they had SHIELD and the Avengers, and Tony’s money and connections.

“I can get Rhodes in on this,” Tony said. “We’ll need a plan.” He rubbed his hands together with a gleeful expression. “It’s been far too long since we had any real excitement around here. There’s nothing I love more than taking on the United States Government.” He grinned.

“I get nervous when Tony’s this excited,” Bruce said dryly. “But I’m in.” Bruce liked Marta, had liked her before his accident and before the government decided she was a terrorist. He wouldn’t let anything happen to her.

“I’m in,” Steve chimed in. It didn’t sit well with Steve what the government had done in the name of patriotism, and it was men like Byer who needed to be stopped. Men like Byer who thought that they had no blood on their hands because they weren’t the ones actually pulling the trigger.

“Of course I’m in,” Natasha said. “It’s Marta. Of course I’ll help you protect Marta.”

“Okay,” Clint stopped pacing and sat back down. “Let’s work out a plan.”

* * *

 

Marta bit her lip as Clint explained the plan to her later than night as they were curled up in bed.

“You’re being awfully quiet,” he finally stopped talking and frowned at her.

“I think I should go with you,” she said after a pause.

“No.” Clint’s body stiffened and his voice was firm.

“Hear me out,” Marta sat up. Clint crossed his arms over his chest and she noticed that his jaw was clenched. That was a sure sign that he was angry. More than angry, if she was being honest, livid.

“No.”

“You’re going in there blind,” she pointed out. “I know that building. I know it inside and out. I can get us to where we need fast. You guys are strong, yes, but you don’t know what you’re looking for.”

“We don’t need to know what we’re looking for,” Clint shot back. “We’ve got a Hulk and Iron Man. I’m pretty sure that no agent, not even the new and improved LARX agents, are any match for those two.”

“You don’t want to create hostilities between SHIELD and the United States government,” Marta argued.

“They won’t care when they see why we went in there,” Clint argued back. “Once we blow the whistle on these guys, they’ll be bending over backwards to apologize to us.”

“They won’t, and you know that. They don’t know what to do with the Avengers already, and now you want Tony to go blow up a high-security, top-secret government lab? Come on, Clint. You know that I’m right. We need to go in there quietly, well, as quietly as possible,” she rolled her eyes. “We need to get the copies and then we need to blow the lid on Treadstone, and Blackbriar and Outcome. Let me go in. I know what I’m looking for.” Clint didn’t answer, but his jaw was still tightened and when he closed his eyes she knew that she had won.

“I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you,” he said quietly.

She settled back down beside him, and intertwined her fingers with his.

“It’ll be okay,” she replied softly. “I’ll have you to protect me. And of course, it doesn’t hurt to have Iron Man on our side.”

“I don’t like this,” he said, but he knew she was right. The US government tolerated the Avengers, but they were still embroiled in an argument about the destruction of New York City.

Tony’s repeated, “We saved the world, you’re welcome,” every time the high cost of the battle against the Chitauri was brought up, didn’t help matters any. They couldn’t go blazing into government buildings.

But the thought of her going anywhere near the people who would shoot her on sight made his stomach turn. One bullet. That’s all it would take for him to lose her. She was safe here, in this building, and he wanted her to stay that way.

She reached up and pressed a kiss to his jaw line, and squeezed his hand.

“It’ll be okay,” she reassured one last time, before turning out the lights and plunging the room into darkness.


	4. Between your smile and your sleight of hand

Clint had already stated, unequivocally, several times actually, how unhappy he was with the current plan.

The plan sucked.

The plan involved Marta leaving the safety of the Tower, and going back to a place where she had almost lost her life once before.

“You’re staying by me. The whole time, got it?” It was probably the seventeenth time in the past hour Clint had said that, and Marta dutifully nodded.

“I will not leave your side,” she promised, and kissed him to stop him from asking her again.

They had her in a disguise: blonde hair, blue contacts, glasses. She looked far different than Marta Shearing ever had before, but it wasn’t enough for Clint.

He let out a heavy sigh.

“It’s going to be all right,” she said. Her voice was confident, and to an outsider, she seemed calm. But Clint knew her inside and out. He heard the nearly imperceptible quiver in her voice, the way that she twisted her fingers together and pursed her lips slightly. She was as nervous about going as he was about her going.

“It’s not too late,” he said. “You can stay here. We’ll come up with another plan. A better plan.”

“This is the best plan,” she insisted. “It’s going to be fine. In and out.” He tugged her a little closer.

Tony was going through the plan one more time so that they all knew what they were doing. “Bruce and I are going to cause a distraction, and Marta and Clint are going to slip in this door here once we get the security system down,” he highlighted the door on the schematic that he had in front of everyone.

Clint had tried one more time to argue with her that they didn’t need her.

“We have the layout,” he tried.

“You and I both know that things look different when you get inside somewhere,” she shot back.

“There are several cameras in this hallway,” Tony pointed them out, ignoring Clint. Clint had been trying to convince everyone this was a terrible plan since they began to work out their plan a few days before. “Natasha is going to come in this door here,” he gestured, “and take care of their surveillance and security system. We want control of those cameras as soon as possible. Marta, you know what you’re looking for. Grab as many files as you can. Get in and get out.”

It was a simple plan.

Clint wasn’t sure if the simplicity made him more nervous or less. In and out. It had been decided over Chinese food take out a couple of days prior, and he hadn’t felt confident about it then or now.

Tony claimed his best thinking happened while eating.

“It’s a great plan,” Tony kept insisting. “A great plan!”

“Are you ready?” Bruce asked Marta, as she readjusted the wig. The disguise would do no good once they were inside the building if they got caught, but it would hopefully keep her safe until they were out of the Tower and in the car.

Byer was watching the Tower. He wasn’t even being subtle about it. It was infuriating to all the Tower’s inhabitants.

“He seems like a prick,” Tony had said as he ate a bite of lo mein. “Are you sure we can’t just let ol’ Hulky smash him?”

“Maybe later,” Clint promised.

Byer watching the building only added another layer of complication. They would have to get Marta out of the Tower without raising Byer’s suspicions. They wanted to catch everyone at the lab completely off guard.

They all tossed out suggestions as to how to get Marta into the waiting car.

“What about we stage a delivery? She can be in a box that we bring out to a waiting moving truck?” Tony suggested.

“What about in a large group of people? She can sneak out in the chaos?” Steve offered.

But in the end, they went with simple. Instead of trying to sneak her out, the plan was to walk her straight out of the Tower through the front door to a waiting car. That part of the plan was Clint’s least favorite part. It involved her walking out with Steve. It was too obvious if she went out with Clint, so he was going to be waiting in the car. He trusted Steve, but the idea of her being watched by Byer with him so far away from her didn’t sit well with him.

“Yes,” she gave a firm nod. “Let’s get this over with.”

As they filed out of the room, Clint stopped her and grabbed her hand. He leaned his forehead against hers and sighed.

“Please, please, be careful,” he said. “And I love you. So much. I need you to know that.”

“I love you too,” she whispered. She gave his hand a squeeze.

Clint followed Tony out the waiting SUV, and caught her eye one last time as she stood with Steve. They pulled around to the front and began to wait for Marta and Steve. It was the longest few minutes of Clint’s life, as they appeared in the doorway to the Tower.

She doesn’t look like herself, Clint reminded himself. And she didn’t. He repeated that over and over again to himself in the few seconds it took the two of them to cross the sidewalk. Steve kept her arm linked in his until he opened the door and allowed her slip inside the SUV. Clint had his arm around her in seconds as Steve climbed in the passenger seat.

Step one, Clint thought. Complete.

* * *

 

They were quiet during the ride to the lab. Clint kept Marta’s hand in his as Tony drove. Bruce and Natasha sat in the very back, Natasha studying the plans of the building and Bruce staring at the passing scenery.

“We’re here,” Tony announced. Marta tensed next to Clint. Tony rubbed his hands together.

“You’re enjoying this too much,” Bruce commented dryly. Tony grinned.

“I’m with you. The whole time,” Clint reminded Marta.

“All right, gang,” Steve spoke up. “We all know what to do.” Steve was going with Clint and Marta to help keep watch, and to get Marta out of there quickly in case things went haywire.

The trio left the others and crept along the fence facing the backdoor. Marta hadn’t thought to ask what kind of distraction Bruce and Tony were planning, but she could only imagine. She spotted Natasha creeping towards another door, and then all of a sudden there was a large boom, and the ground shook lightly beneath her feet.

“Showtime,” Clint muttered next to her.


	5. And the silence fell just like a stone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'll be honest, this, uh, wasn't how I thought this chapter would go. It just sort of happened.

Clint didn’t mind crouching in the dirt with Steve and Marta outside the lab. Crouching outside meant that they could make an easy escape if things should go wrong. It was once they were inside that he was worried about.

“Go,” Natasha’s voice cut through the radio and Steve hopped to his feet and helped Marta up. They sandwiched Marta between them, Clint leading the way, Steve following a few centimeters behind her. If someone was going to hurt Marta, it would be over Clint’s dead body.

Clint pulled open the door, and startled the security guard standing there. It took no time at all to flip him over and knock him out, and then Clint tugged on Marta’s hand and pulled her into the hallway of the lab.

“This way,” Marta whispered, pointing and they hurried down the hall.

Natasha was keeping watch on the security screens and warned them of approaching security guards and employees. Clint had little trouble dispatching most of them, and with Steve’s help, they managed to make it down to where Marta promised pay dirt.

“Grab as many as you can, Doc,” Clint instructed. He glanced out into the hallway, and Steve hovered close to Marta as she tugged open file drawers and began filling a bag.

“Those are all signed by Byer,” Steve noted, looking over Marta’s shoulder as she threw another handful into the bag.

“This is…they were breeding sociopaths,” she muttered. Clint glanced over. “The LARX agents…they were… _are_ insane.”

“Clint! You’re going to have company,” Natasha’s voice crackled over the radio. “Lots of company.”

“We need to get out of here,” Steve said, helping Marta zip up the bag and hoisting it over his shoulder.

For Marta, the next few second stretched out and happened in slow motion. They were swarmed by guards, and it took her too long to realize they weren’t guards.

They were assets.

“We could use some help,” Clint’s voice was low and dangerous.

The assets came streaming in; there were at least five or six of them. Steve pushed her behind him, and raised his shield to stop the hail of bullets. Marta cowered behind him, afraid to move, but desperately wanting to look to see if Clint was okay. Steve was quick and dodged attacks, but he was constantly aware that Marta was defenseless and hiding behind him, and it hindered his ability to fight back.

For Marta, it was a blur of limbs and bullets and Clint’s arrows slicing through the air, and then she felt a sting and she let out a gasp and brought her hand to her side. Her hand pulled away sticky and red, and she suddenly realized that she had been hit.

“Clint,” her voice wavered, but the room was full of noise, and she could barely hear her own voice. She hurt. Oh God, did she hurt. She began to slide down, unable to keep herself up. There was another loud noise, and she heard the unmistakable sound of Tony’s thrusters and the Hulk’s rage.

“Steve?” She tried, and Steve spun around.

“Oh, oh, no,” he dropped to his knees and pressed his hand to her side. “Clint!”

Marta was only vaguely aware of the curse word that left Clint’s mouth, and how he raced to her side, falling down and reaching for her hand.

“Marta? Sweetheart,” his voice sounded so far away, and she felt Steve’s hand move away and Clint yelled for something to put over her wound. She felt kind of like she was underwater, and suddenly she was being scooped up into Clint’s strong arms. “Stay with me, Marta.” But she felt tired, and she hurt, and it was all becoming fuzzy around the edges. “Stay with me, baby. Please, stay with me.”

And she reached her hand up to touch Clint’s face, leaving a smear of blood on his cheek.

“I’m sorry,” she heard herself say, and then everything went dark.

* * *

 

Clint should have been prepared for assets.

He had assumed, incorrectly it turned out, they would only be dealing with guards and Sterisyn-Mortlana employees. It was his big mistake.

Assets were harder, but Clint was still confident in their abilities. Marta was safely tucked behind Steve and his shield, and he knew that Bruce and Tony were on their way down to help.

“Clint!” Steve’s voice broke through the melee and Clint turned around expecting to have to dodge a surprise attack.

He would have given anything to have it be a surprise attack. Anything, _anything,_ but what it was.

Marta. Blood. Her face pale and her hands shaking.

Oh, no, no, no, no, Clint thought, as his stomach dropped and he felt the overwhelming urge to throw up. He threw himself forward and down and grabbed her hand.

“Marta? Sweetheart?” Steve moved his hand away and Clint cursed again under his breath. “I need something to put pressure on her side!” He yelled and Tony tossed him a shirt from one of the fallen assets. Clint balled it up and pressed it hard to stop the flow of warm blood. Marta hissed in pain, and took a sharp intake of breath. He used another shirt to tie it around her waist, holding the makeshift bandage in place. "Stay with me, Marta." 

“We need to get out of here,” Steve said. Clint didn’t hesitate; he lifted her easily into his arms.

“Stay with me, baby. Please, stay with me,” Clint pleaded as they ran through the hallways, Marta cradled tightly to his chest. She reached a shaky hand up to touch his cheek.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and his heart stopped. Her breathing was shallow, but she was still breathing. Her breathing was the only thing keeping his tenuous grip on sanity.

With Tony leading the way, they finally emerged out into the warm, sunlight.

“I can get her to the hospital fast,” Tony spoke, his voice quiet and firm. “I’ll take care of her.” Clint knew he was right, but he hesitated for a moment before finally transferring her into Tony’s outstretched arms. Tony took off, a blur streaking through the sky, and Clint’s arms felt empty and he felt the anger start to settle into his bones.

Byer would pay for this. Clint would make sure of that.


	6. That got lost in the wild blue and the gravel gray

"What's taking so long?" Clint asked. "Someone should have been out here telling us something. It shouldn't take this long."

It was the fourth time in twenty minutes he had asked that question. Natasha had been keeping track.

He had spent the first few hours of Marta's surgery with his head in his hands, quiet and still, and then had come to life after hour four, pacing back and forth and jumping every time the door to the waiting room opened. His shirt was stained with Marta's blood, and he still had a bloody hand print on his cheek, but he refused to leave to change or clean up.

He refused to go anywhere until he heard something, _anything,_ about Marta's condition.

The ride to the hospital had been tense. Tony had called to report that he had gotten Marta to the closest hospital, and that the doctors had whisked her out of his arms and immediately into surgery, but hadn't been out to tell him anything since that had happened. They had raced inside the hospital where Tony was waiting for them.

“How is she?” Clint asked.

“They really won’t tell me anything. They took her into surgery, and they said it could be awhile, but that’s all I know,” Tony answered. Clint’s fists balled at his sides, and he had clenched his jaw, taken a seat, and then sat in silence for the next four hours.

Natasha was worried about Marta, but she was also worried about Clint. Marta had to be okay, she had to be. Natasha knew if they lost Marta, they were going to lose Clint too.

“Clint? Would you sit down? You’re starting to make me sick,” Bruce finally spoke up and Clint shot him a glare, but threw himself down in a seat and crossed his arms.

Pepper appeared with a tray full of coffee and a new shirt for Clint which she tossed to him.

“You need to get out of that shirt,” she said when he looked up with a question in his eyes. “You don’t want the first thing Marta sees when she wakes up to be you covered in her blood.” She sat down next to him, handed him a coffee and gave his arm a squeeze. “And she will wake up.”

Clint didn’t say anything, but he stripped off his bloody shirt and pulled the new one over his head. Natasha took the opportunity to hand him a wet paper towel, and gestured to his face. He scowled, but wiped his face and she breathed out a silent sigh of relief that at least he was clean again.

He had looked frightening when they had first left the lab. There was a look in his eyes that Natasha had never seen before, and his body simmered with rage. It buzzed just beneath the surface, and she felt the tension and anger coming off of his in waves. The blood smeared across his face had caused more than a few people to jump out of his way as he stormed into the hospital.

“Thanks Pep,” Tony said as she handed him a coffee and slipped her hand into his. Tony felt more than a little guilty at the amount of gratitude he felt that Pepper was sitting next to him, whole and unharmed, and not fighting for her life behind one of those hospital doors. He knew what it felt like to have the person you love in mortal danger, and he felt for Clint. Marta hadn’t stirred in his arms as he rushed to the nearest hospital. Her face had lost all color, and he was afraid more than once that she had stopped breathing before she would take in a ragged breath and he felt the relief wash over him.

When the doctors rushed her away, he had wondered if he had failed in his promise to Clint to take care of her. He knew, on a rational level, that he had gotten her here as fast as he possibly could, but if she didn’t make it, _she had to make it_ , a little part of him would wonder what more he could have done.

“What’s taking them so long?” Clint asked again. There were about a thousand emotions rushing through him, ranging from helplessness to anger and fear. He knew he should have never let her come with them. It was too dangerous. He had told her it was too dangerous, but she was stubborn and determined. If only he would have insisted. They could have grabbed those files without her, they could have studied the lay out and never brought her with them. She would still be in the Tower, where she was safe.

Clint was angry at her, and angry at himself, but he was beyond furious at Byer.

He would kill Byer. He would kill him.

Byer had been a thorn in his side for as long as he could remember, and it was time that Byer answered for all the pain and suffering he had put Marta through.

He hadn’t even noticed he had begun to crush the coffee cup in his hands until the hot liquid began to seep through. He got up and tossed it in the trash can just as the door swung open and a doctor came striding in.

The doctor was covered in blood. Marta’s blood, and Clint felt the bile hit the back of his throat.

“Marta?” was all Clint could manage to get out.

“She’s stable,” the doctor told him and Clint felt his legs go shaky with relief. “She’s not out of the woods yet. She lost a lot of blood and we’re worried about infection, but we have her stabilized and we’re cautiously optimistic.” Pepper pulled Tony in for a hug, Bruce nodded and sighed in relief, and Natasha ducked her head to cover the grin that was creeping onto her face. Steve clapped his hands together once, and rocked back on his heels. Only Clint stood still, rooted to the spot.

“I need to see her,” he finally said.

“We’re bringing her to ICU, and once we have her settled, we’ll bring you back.” The doctor went back through the doors and Clint closed his eyes.

“She’s okay,” Natasha spoke up, reaching up and resting a hand on Clint’s back. “She’s strong and stubborn, and she’s okay.”

“He said she’s not out of the woods yet,” Clint argued.

“Cautiously optimistic,” Bruce repeated for Clint. “She’s stable, she made out of surgery, those are all good things.” But Clint wasn’t going to believe it until he saw her for himself. He slumped down into a seat and waited. 

He was getting really sick of waiting.

* * *

 

It felt like ages before the nurse came back to get him and led him back to the ICU.

The others were still in the waiting room, having promised that they weren’t going anywhere. Clint forgot all about them the second he saw Marta’s still form lying in the bed.

Her face was pale, and there were tubes and wires everywhere, but she was still alive, and that was all he needed.

He grabbed her hand and brought it to his lips.

“Can she hear me?” He asked the nurse.

“I’m not sure, but it can’t hurt,” the nurse gave him an encouraging smile.

“Marta? Sweetheart? You did so good, Doc,” he brought their clasped hands up and rested his head against their intertwined fingers. “They’re not going to know what hit them. Tony already called Rhodes to give him an overview of what we got, and Rhodes is taking care of some things on his end to get the ball rolling. We’re going to make them pay, Doc. I’m going to make them pay.” He closed his eyes and listened to the sound of the machines keeping Marta here with him.

“You’re going to be just fine, Doc,” he said. “Just fine. And you’re safe now, sweetheart. I’m not going to let anything else happen to you. You’re safe. So you just rest, okay? I’ll be here when you wake up. I’m not going anywhere.” And for the first time since Steve had called his name and the world had dropped out from under him, he let himself relax.


	7. Now every time I see your face, the bells ring in a far off place

It had been a long couple of days.

Marta didn’t stir for two days, and Clint refused to leave her side.

The doctors kept reassuring him that she was okay, and that it was just a matter of time before she woke up. On day two they took her off the respirator, which Clint took as a good sign, and finally let someone else sit next to her bed while he went to grab something to eat and shower. There were plenty of offers, but Clint asked Natasha to take his place. Old habits die hard, he supposed. Tony had arranged a couple of the rooms that were usually reserved for family members when they were stuck at the hospital, and he hurried up to shower and grab a change of clothes from the bag that Pepper had packed for him.

Steve was lying on the bed when he barged in.

“How’s she doing?” He asked.

“Same,” Clint answered, and he wished that he had some better news to give.

Unfortunately, Marta had yet to blink open her pretty eyes, and the longer it took the more Clint was going crazy.

“Need anything?” Steve asked.

“Yeah, actually, I’d love something to eat.” Not having to go down and find some food himself would mean that he could be back by Marta’s side faster. He hated being away from her. He couldn't shake the feeling that the minute he turned away something was going to sweep in and take her from him. It made him feel unsettled and off balanced and he needed Marta's quiet strength to regain his equilibrium. 

Natasha was flipping through a magazine when he appeared in Marta’s room a little less than an hour later.

“You could have taken longer,” she said without looking up.

“I didn’t want to.”

“You should sleep.”

“I’ll sleep here,” he replied.

“You’re no good to her exhausted.”

“I’m no good to her if I’m not here.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.” Natasha stood and relinquished the seat to Clint who took it, and grabbed Marta’s hand. “Thanks though.”

Natasha’s gaze softened.

“Of course,” she answered.

“No change?”

“No, but they said…”

“It’s a matter of time,” he interrupted. “I know.”

“You’re being impatient,” Natasha accused.

“I know that too. I can’t help it.” He couldn’t either. He needed Marta to open her eyes. He needed her to be okay. He hadn’t slept since she had been shot; he hadn’t really relaxed since he had cradled her body in his arms and rushed out of the lab praying to any god that would listen. The knot in the bottom of his stomach had only eased marginally, and he needed to hear her voice and see her eyes before it would completely dissipate.

“She’s going to be okay,” Natasha told him as she stood and stretched. “But we’re all here if you need anything.” Clint just nodded, his eyes turning to Marta’s still body.

“Thanks.” It did actually mean a lot to him that they were all still there. That they cared about him, about Marta, as much as they did. He had never had that before, and he had to admit it was nice. He appreciated the way that they had taken on Byer and his cronies in order to help clear Marta's name.

Once Natasha left, it was just him and Marta. It was nice that they had more people to look out for them, but Clint still only trusted one person completely and without hesitation. And he needed her to wake up. 

* * *

 

Marta felt a warm hand in hers when she finally opened her eyes.

She blinked a couple of times, confused. This wasn’t her bed. Everything was kind of fuzzy, blurred around the edges. She was also in pain. It was dulled, but constantly present, and it all came back to her suddenly.

The lab, the shooting, Clint’s broken voice asking her to stay with him.

Clint.

She was sure that he was the owner of the hand gripped so tightly in hers.

“Clint?” Her voice was hoarse. In addition to the thousand other things that seemed to hurt, her throat ached. Her voice was quiet from disuse, but Clint’s head shot up at the sound.

“Marta?” His voice was disbelieving, and a smile crept across his face. “God Doc, you scared me.” He buried his face in her hair, pulling her carefully to him. When he pulled back, he covered her mouth with his, the kiss desperate and urgent. “Don’t ever do that to me again.” He paused and studied her face for a moment, as if memorizing every detail. “Are you in pain?”

“I got shot,” Marta said matter-of-factly. “Of course I’m in pain.” Clint grinned, and brought her hand up to his and gave it a kiss. “But what happened? Is everyone else okay?”

“Everyone’s fine, Doc,” he assured her. “You were the only one who got hurt.”

“Good,” she said. They had all gone on the mission for her and for Clint, and she would have hated to think anyone had gotten hurt because of her. Clint scoffed. 

“It should have been me,” he shot back.

“Did we get all the files out?” Marta asked, ignoring him. She was so beyond grateful that it wasn't him, but she imagined that he felt differently about the subject.

“We got everything,” Clint replied. “We already made copies and got it to Rhodes. He’s getting it to the right people.” She yawned, and he pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. “But don’t worry about that right now. You need to rest.”

“You aren’t leaving, right?”

“No, Doc, I’m not going anywhere,” he promised and she closed her eyes.

* * *

With the knowledge that Marta was okay, and after making sure she was also safe, a SHIELD guard would be standing outside her door until she was well enough to go home to the Tower, Clint gathered the troops and wanted a full debriefing on what had been happening while he had been at Marta’s bedside.

“So what’s happening? Where are we on everything?” He asked.

“Rhodes said that indictments and warrants for arrest are imminent,” Tony reported. “That’s the good news.” He exchanged a glance with Bruce and Clint pounced on it.

“But?” He prompted.

“Byer’s gone into hiding,” Tony answered.

“That means he’s not across the street from the Tower anymore,” Steve offered, looking for the silver lining.

“Damn it,” Clint growled. More than anything, or anyone, else, Clint wanted Byer to pay for what he had done to Marta.

“We’ll find him,” Natasha spoke up. “He can’t hide forever.”

No, Byer couldn’t hide forever. He had none of the survival skills that he had drilled into his agents. The only thing that Byer had on his side was the fact that he knew the ins and outs of searching for a person who had gone rogue. He knew how they would search for him, and he knew where. Clint also knew that Byer was cocky. He thought his hands were clean and that he was morally right. It was just a matter of time before Byer slipped up, and Clint would be waiting.


	8. The curvature is pressed against the raise

“It’s good to be home,” Marta sighed as she leaned back against the pillows of her and Clint’s bed.

She hated the hospital, always had, and had been anxious to get out of the hospital from the moment she woke up. Clint had been anxious to get her out of the hospital too. She was the safest in the Tower, and until he tracked down Byer that was where he wanted her to stay.

“Do you need anything?” He asked.

“Just you,” she replied, and he leaned in and gave her a long kiss.

“You need to rest,” he said after he pulled back, and he pressed a kiss to her forehead. “The doctor said you still need your rest.” Marta wanted to argue, but she was still in some serious pain and she was exhausted, constantly, and so she took comfort in the fact that she was in her own bed and chose not to put up a fight.

“I’ll be just downstairs, and if you need anything JARVIS will let me know.” He kissed her again, and brushed a piece of hair off her face.

“What?” She asked. He was staring intently at her, and she shifted under his gaze.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured. He had almost lost her, and even thinking of that made him sick. Marta blushed.

“I look awful,” she insisted. She had dark circles under her eyes, and her skin was still pale and she knew that she had certainly looked better, but Clint shook his head.

“No, you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he replied. “I’m just so happy you’re home.” He pressed a kiss to her lips and she gave a small smile.

He stayed just a moment longer to watch her rest, and then hurried down to where the rest of the Avengers were gathered.

“What do we know?” Clint asked, throwing himself into a chair. It was easier to focus knowing that Marta was back in the Tower where nothing, and no one, could hurt her.

“We’ve got a lead that he might be hiding out in the Philippines,” Bruce spoke up.

Clint raised an eyebrow. The Philippines? That was ironic. He wondered if he was up for another chase on another motorcycle, but then shook his head. Things were different now. There would be no chase. There would be either Tony blowing him to high heaven, or Bruce squishing him like the bug he was.

Clint knew that he should be happy with the way things were unfolding here in the United States. He should be happy that Vosen and the others were arrested and awaiting trial and that every day more information came to light and ended up on the evening news.

“It’s nice that they have something to focus on instead of us,” Tony had mused as they were watching CNN. There wasn’t even a mention of the Avengers, and it was a nice break. But it was hard to be excited about that when Eric Byer was still free and loose. Clint could see his face as he explained that they were sin eaters, he could see that smirk, and then he could see Marta, bloody and pale, and he wanted Byer to suffer.

“Also,” Natasha said. “Marta’s been officially pardoned. So has Aaron Cross, but I don’t think that matters to you as much.” Clint whipped his head around and Natasha was giving him a rare grin.

“She’s going to be thrilled,” he said softly.

“We’ve already contacted her sister,” Pepper entered the room, and leaned down to give Tony a kiss on the cheek. “We sent a plane up to get her, and she should be arriving later today. She was very anxious to see Marta.”

“Thank you,” didn’t seem like enough, but Clint said it anyway.

* * *

 

“Marta?” Clint was antsy to get to Manila, but he wanted to let Marta know first that he was going and that her sister was on her way. Pepper had promised that she would keep an eye on Marta until her sister arrived, and had been a huge relief to Clint who had been worried about leaving her behind. He had left her behind before, and he had hated every minute of it. Doing it again was not something he was looking forward to. But here she was safe, and that made all the difference.

“Hmmm?” She rolled over and blinked lazily at him.

“I have to go. We have a lead on Byer, and I have to follow it,” he hoped she would understand. It was something he had to do. “But I have good news too. Pepper is heading to the airport to pick up your sister.” Marta’s face lit up, and Clint made a promise that he would do whatever he could, whenever he could, to make sure that he got to see that smile more often.

“What?” She winced as she tried to sit up quickly, and Clint frowned and wrapped an arm around her to help her.

“Careful, Doc,” he admonished, but Marta was far too excited to worry about a little pain.

“Is it safe? For Liv to be here, I mean?” Her sister Olivia was six years older than her, and had been taking care of her for as long as she could remember. Their mother had died when Marta was only four, and their father had been too busy grieving and working to remember that he had two daughters. Right until the moment that Marta had met Aaron, Liv had been her very favorite person in the world. Her sister was the only part of her life that Marta had missed when they were on the run, and then when she was in hiding. Clint had promised when he had left her to join the Avengers that he would try to get word to Olivia that Marta was safe, but Marta hadn’t wanted to put her sister in any sort of danger, and had declined the offer.

“You’ve received a full pardon from the United States Government, Dr. Shearing,” Clint grinned at her. “With their full apologies for their multiple attempts on your life.” Marta threw her arms around his neck and he cradled her to him, relishing the feel of her against him, and wishing that he could just screw finding Byer and stay here with her as long as he could.

When he pulled back, he realized that she was crying, salty tracks down her cheeks and he pressed his fingers to stop the tears and she smiled widely at him.

“I never thought,” she began and shook her head. “Liv is really on her way?”

“Yes,” Clint confirmed. “She’s going to stay here in the Tower with you while I go find Byer.”

“I’m going to miss you,” Marta intertwined their fingers. “Be safe.”

“You too,” he kissed her hard, and ran his hand through her dark hair. “If anything happens, you can get a hold of me through Tony. If you need anything, _anything_ , don’t hesitate.”

“Go,” she gave him another kiss. “And hurry back.”

* * *

 

It was decided that they should arrive semi-quietly into the Philippines.

“So no ACDC?” Tony had asked, his face falling.

“No,” Clint said firmly. The others were allowing him to make most of the decisions concerning this mission. It was his fight, and everyone knew it.

“We need the element of surprise,” Natasha had pointed out. “If Byer thinks we’re coming, he’ll be on the next plane, train, boat, bus out of there.”

In the end, they landed and quietly made their way to a command center in the middle of the city. Riding through the streets of Manila took Clint back, and he remembered riding through the crowded city in the back of a cab with Marta. He was unsure of her then, but there had always been something about the quiet doctor that had drawn him to her.

From the intel and from the analysis on Byer, they figured they only had a couple of days before he moved onto somewhere else. Clint wondered if he would take the same route that they had taken. A boat to another island and then get lost in the massive crowds and cities.

He wasn’t about to stand around and find out.

Eric Byer had a reckoning coming, and Clint couldn’t wait to be the one to deliver it.

* * *

Eric Byer thought hiding in Manila was poetic.

It was hot, crowded, and the perfect place for someone to slip unnoticed.

He had gone to ground as soon as the news hit. He had been watching that Tower like a hawk, and he wasn’t sure how they had gotten Dr. Shearing out from without tipping him off. But he was at least pleased to note that he had been right in his hypothesis. That Avenger, the one with the bow and arrow, had looked a little too much like Outcome 5 and Byer wasn’t an idiot. He couldn’t prove it, and he couldn’t take on the Avengers, but he knew that if he waited long enough, Outcome 5 might lead him right to Dr. Shearing.

Every man had a weakness, and Cross’s was his sweet, pretty doctor. Byer’s plan had been simple: get Marta and get Cross to give himself up in a trade. He would have killed Marta long before Cross even arrived, but Five wouldn’t have known that. Although Byer did toy with the idea of killing her in front of Five. He wanted Cross to suffer, and he guaranteed that a bullet through Dr. Shearing’s head would have driven Cross to the brink of insanity.

It was a great plan.

And then everything went wrong. 

He got the call first that a team had broken into the lab, and then slowly more information began to trickle out. Dr. Shearing was hit in the crossfire.That had pleased him, but the news that they had stolen files had quickly dampened his glee. He knew right then that he had to get out of New York. Quickly. Before the indictments and the arrests started raining down.

And to make matters worse, Dr. Shearing turned out to be more resilient than he had first thought. He had tried to get someone into the hospital to take care of things, but his guy had reported back that Cross never left her side, and on the rare occasions that he did, one of the other Avengers had taken his place.

“They have her room locked up tighter than Fort Knox,” had been the report.

It was no matter. Byer had gotten out, he had gotten away, and after things settled down, he would wind his way back to the good, old US of A, and he would find Dr. Shearing and Cross.

It wasn’t as if he didn’t know where to look for them.

He sat back in his hotel room, and smiled. He just had to be patient. And he had always been very good at being patient.


	9. Though I'm here in this far off place

Clint hated this part. The waiting part. He hated being in this hot, crowded city in this hot, crowded command center so far away from Marta.

It felt like old times, when he had her hidden away, and it was a reminder of how much he had hated those months and months of not seeing her, not knowing if she was truly safe. It was different, of course it was, he could call her up and hear her voice any time he wanted. Which he did. Frequently. Especially considering that Tony also hated waiting, and he wasn’t as good as Clint was at suffering silently.

In fact, Tony suffered loudly. He wanted to make sure everyone knew how unhappy he was simply waiting for Byer to slip up so that they could swoop in and save the day.

“I hate this city,” Tony muttered.

“I actually like it a lot,” Natasha replied. “The people are nice. I like the food. You’re just impatient.”

“Yes,” Tony agreed with a grin. “I am.” Steve rolled his eyes from where he was training, hitting a punching bag over and over. It always helped Steve to envision someone’s face on the bag, and right now, if he had been asked, he would have offered up that it was Tony’s face he was seeing.

It wasn’t fun for any of them to be holed up together, but Tony was the only one complaining. Tony had JARVIS trying to find some sort of electronic trail for Byer, and Fury was updating them frequently on the intel that SHIELD was collecting. But it was still just a waiting game, and it was slowly driving them all crazy.

“I’m going to call Marta and check in on her,” Clint said, pushing his chair back and leaving the room to get a little privacy. It hadn’t been that long since the last time he had called to check on her, but he couldn’t stand to be in that room for one more minute. She answered on the second ring, and he could hear the smile in her voice.

“Any luck?” She asked as a greeting. She was as anxious to get him home as he was to be home.

“Not yet,” he sighed. “I’m not sure what we’re doing wrong. I know he’s here. I can feel it. I don’t think he would have skipped town yet. I’m just…this is hard, you know?” She made a sympathetic noise.

“I know,” her voice was low and oh, God, did he wish he was at home with her. And it struck him as strange, and sort of unbelievable, that he had a home. That the Tower had become his home, and her home, and he wondered now that she wasn’t wanted by the United States government if they should move out of the Tower into their own place. But he didn’t really want to do that, and he hoped that she didn’t either. He would do whatever she wanted to do, and he would go wherever she wanted to go, but he had gotten used to living there, constantly surrounded by people, and he had to admit he would miss it if they ever left.

“I miss you,” he said, and he could practically hear her smile.

“I miss you too,” she replied.

“How are things going back there?” He asked, and Marta laughed.

“Pretty much the same as when you asked me three hours ago,” she answered, but she didn’t sound irritated. He couldn’t help it if he needed to hear her voice every so often to help keep him grounded. Talking to her had the added bonus of helping him to refrain from killing Tony, which was good for all parties involved. “Liv is mothering me to death.” He heard Liv protest in the background, and he had heard so much about her that he was curious to see what she was really like. She was an art teacher, Marta had told him, the complete opposite of her scientist sister. Married to her high school sweetheart, she had settled early and stay settled. According to the report that Pepper gave Tony, there were many tears when the sisters reunited.

“Good,” Clint told her. “You need to rest.” He could see in his head Marta rolling her eyes.

“I’m fine,” he wasn’t sure if this was directed at him or at Liv. “Honestly, it barely even hurts anymore.”

“You’re lying,” he accused.

“Well, exaggerating,” she admitted. “But really, stop worrying. Focus on finding Byer and getting your ass back home.” He grinned.

“I worry about you all the time, Doc,” he said. “I can’t turn it off. But you’re right. I need to find him and get my ass back home. I should go. I love you.”

“I love you too,” her voice was soft and it was so hard to be away from her. Clint hung up the phone and wandered back to where the others were pouring over information and arguing about what the best lead to follow was.

“How’s Marta feeling?” Steve asked when he looked up to see Clint walk in the room.

“Better, I think, she was complaining about her sister being overprotective,” Clint smiled and settled into the chair next to Natasha.

“She’s just lucky it’s her sister and not you there,” Natasha replied. Clint had to laugh a little that, but mostly because it was true. If he was at home, like he wanted to be, he was sure that he would insist on Marta not moving a muscle.

“She was just shot,” he argued. “She needs to take it easy.”

“Mother hen,” Natasha teased.

“Hey! I have something,” Bruce called out. Clint was on his feet in an instant and hurrying over. “I think we have a visual on where he’s staying.” Bruce grabbed a map of the city and circled a hotel on it. Clint noted, with a dry satisfaction, that it was a far cry from the luxurious hotels that Byer was used to staying in. It was a hovel, but it appeared to still be nicer than what he and Marta had stayed in when they hid out in the city.

“Let’s go get him,” Tony said clapping his hands together.

“Not so fast there, cowboy,” Bruce said. “We should probably confirm before we go in hot.”

“He’s right,” Natasha agreed. “We can go stake it out.”

“I did not sign on for a stakeout where I lay hidden behind some garbage cans waiting for an indeterminate amount of time staring at the side of a building,” Tony argued.

“Stay here then,” Clint shrugged. “You and Bruce can stay here and watch for any more information. Captain, can you come?” Steve nodded.

“Of course,” he replied.

“Then it’s settled. We’ll each take a door of the hotel,” Natasha said pointing out the exits on the graphic of the hotel that Bruce had pulled up. “We’ll try to confirm that Byer’s there, and if he is, we’ll go get him.”

It almost seemed too easy that Byer would be there, but Clint was trying to remain optimistic. If Byer slipped out of Manila, who knew when they would be able to track him down next. Clint wanted the threat destroyed. He wanted to be able to return home to Marta and be able to tell her that he took care of the man who stole her life out from under her.

“Okay,” Clint’s voice was hard and he felt himself slipping into soldier mode. “Let’s go.”

* * *

 

Byer knew that he needed to move on. Manila was only safe for so long. He only left his hotel room to gather some food and supplies, and was careful to not stay out too long and to note any cameras or surveillance. He managed to always get lost in the crowds, and if there was one thing that was in abundance in Manila, it was crowds.

He scoffed. Calling this a hotel room was a joke. It was a dump. But it was a hidden dump, and that’s all that mattered.

He wanted to check up on the news, see what was happening, but he was cut off. It had been his doing. There could be no way to track his whereabouts, he had to make sure of that. Cross and Shearing had help now. And not just any help, but the Avengers.

Byer hated the Avengers. Always had. Particularly Tony Stark. Byer had plenty of favors he could still call in, and that wouldn’t have changed just because some documents came to light. He did what he had to do. He was protecting the United States.

No, he would be okay. He just had to lay low until things died down. Tomorrow he would leave this flea-ridden hotel and this godforsaken city.

* * *

Clint shifted his weight and looked through the binoculars. They had been out here for a little over two hours and had seen no movement from the hotel. He was getting antsy.

“I hate stake outs,” he heard Natasha mutter through their equipment. She was watching the side door, and Steve had taken the back door. “I’m starting to think Stark was right. We should just bust in there and let Bruce take care of him.” Just as Clint was about to respond, he saw something, or more accurately someone, step out of the hotel. The person was wearing a baseball cap pulled down tightly over their head, and sunglasses were covered half of their face, but there was no mistaking it.

It was Byer.

“It’s him,” Clint confirmed. “He’s in the hotel. I’m going to follow him.” He didn’t wait for Natasha and Steve to reply, he jumped from his hiding spot and scaled down the wall to the street below. Byer was moving quickly, weaving through the crowds, but Clint had no problem at all following him, leaving enough space between them not to tip Byer off. He watched as Byer disappeared into the market, grabbing fruits and bottles of water, and then hurrying back to the hotel. Byer didn’t glance around once, so confident that he was still hidden, that he wasn’t being followed. His cockiness was what was making it so easy to take him down.

Clint waited until Byer was back in his hotel before hurrying back to where Natasha and Steve were waiting.

“It’s definitely him,” Clint said. “I’m just going to go in and grab him.” Natasha grabbed his hand to stop him.

“You mean go in and kill him,” she said. Clint was quiet. “I won’t tell you not to do it, but I think you should follow the plan. We’ll go get Tony and Bruce and we’ll cover all the exits so that he can’t escape. This is too important to screw up, Clint.”

“You think I don’t know how important this is?” Clint hissed, his voice low and dangerous. He knew how important this was. He had held Marta in his arms as she bled, the panic rising up in him and her face becoming paler and her body becoming colder. Byer might not have pulled the trigger, but he had loaded the gun. He had given the orders, and Clint held him responsible. Byer had ordered Outcome burned to the ground in the first place, ripping Marta’s world out from under her.

“I’m just saying, let’s follow the plan,” Natasha stood firm, and Clint finally relented. He still wanted to just burst into the hotel room, catch Byer off guard and put a bullet in his head. They were not safe, Marta was not safe, until Byer was eliminated as a threat. The plan was to take Byer alive, but Clint wouldn’t be too upset if this turned out to be an impossibility. Byer needed to be gone, and whether that was as a prisoner of SHIELD or dead, it didn’t matter much to Clint.

But Clint didn’t want to have to retreat back to Marta and tell her that he had Byer but he let him slip through his hands because he lacked patience. Natasha was right, this was too important to make any mistakes.

Hopefully, he thought as he and Natasha and Steve made their way back to the command center, they could finish this tonight and Clint could be back by Marta’s side by tomorrow.


	10. I keep you in a flower vase

Byer never saw it coming.

The three of them returned to grab Bruce and Tony, and when they came back, they took positions at each of the exits of the hotel, with Natasha on the roof. Byer was going to be desperate, and Clint needed to make sure that they had sealed off every possible escape route. One thing was for sure, Byer was not skilled enough to evade the Avengers, any of them. Not one on one, and certainly not when they had all teamed up.

It was decided that Clint would be the one to go grab him. To be fair, it wasn’t exactly decided, but Clint had growled at them, “I’m getting him,” and they all had hastily agreed. Clint could hear his own breathing in his ears as he slid along the wall of the hotel. The woman at the front desk had only been too eager to help when Iron Man had shown up in her lobby, telling Clint immediately what room it was that the “strange American man” was staying in.

“Let’s just hope there’s only one strange American man staying here,” Natasha had noted, and Clint had silenced her with a glare.

Now, he stood outside of Byer’s door, and he took a deep breath. He closed his eyes for a moment and saw Marta’s face, and then it changed and all he saw was her blood, covering his hands, and he made himself relive those awful moments when he thought he might have to live the rest of his life without her. He let himself get angry, he let himself become full of hatred and rage, and then he burst into Byer’s room, weapons drawn.

Byer had been lounging on the bed when the door flew open and Clint came barreling in. He jumped to his feet, and looked wildly around the room for an alternate exit.

“Hello, Byer,” Clint said. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Outcome Five,” Byer’s hands fell to his side, but he still had that damn smirk on his face. Clint wanted to smack that smirk off of him. He was itching to pull the trigger, just kill him, but he had promised to try to take him alive. Fury thought with the right motivation, Byer could be coerced into spilling all kinds of techniques and secrets. Clint had reluctantly agreed, but now that he was standing here in front of him, Clint just wanted him dead.

“You know, you could have just left her alone,” Clint’s voice was low.

“Ah, the good Dr. Shearing,” Byer nodded. “She turned out to be a lot harder to eliminate than I had thought.” Clint’s fingers tightened around the trigger at the thought of Marta being “eliminated.”

“She’s a warrior,” Clint replied.

“How’s that warrior doing? I hear she had a run in with the wrong side of a gun,” Byer was antagonizing him. “Please send her my best wishes for a speedy recovery.” Clint moved fast, throwing Byer back into the wall, his arm against Byer’s windpipe. The smirk faltered, and for the first time Byer seemed at least a little afraid.

“If anyone, _anyone_ , touches another hair on her head, I will kill you,” Clint seethed.

“Oh, are you not going to kill me now?” Byer wheezed. “I thought that was what you were here to do.” Clint wrenched Byer’s arm back.

“Nah,” Clint said as he flipped Byer onto his back and Byer landed with a hiss. He kept his foot against Byer’s neck as he called in for backup. “It’s going to be more fun to have you behind bars, impotent and isolated. Unless anything else happens to Marta. And then I’ll make sure you die slowly and painfully.” Steve arrived first, and the pair handcuffed Byer.

“I thought he’d fight more,” Steve mused.

“I’m full of surprises,” Byer muttered as Clint yanked him to his feet. Steve looked him in the eyes.

“I’m awfully fond of Dr. Shearing,” he told Byer. “Clint blames you for her being hurt, and I have to agree. I’ve never been one for revenge, but I think for you I’d make an exception.” Tony got there next, flipping up his face plate.

“No fight?” He asked, his tone disappointed. “Pity. I was really looking forward to a good solid fight.”

“Don’t worry, we’ve heard chatter about a stolen pile of weapons,” Natasha said as she entered. “I’m sure they’ll be a worthier opponent than this piece of human garbage.” Clint tugged Byer out of the room and it was then that Byer tried to escape. He tripped Clint, and hands still tied, made a break for the door, only to be stopped by Bruce, large and green, standing in his way.

Bruce growled and lunged, and Byer skidded to a stop.

“Nice try though,” Clint said as he knocked Byer’s head against the wall and Bruce scooped up Byer’s limp body.

Back at headquarters, Byer was tied to a chair and Clint took a moment to slip from the room where Tony was toying with him to call Marta. She answered right away.

“Clint?” He didn’t say anything at first, letting the sound of her voice wash over him. “Are you there?”

“Hi honey,” he finally said. She let out a breath.

“Hi,” he could hear the smile in her voice.

“We got him,” he told her. Marta was quiet for a moment, and then he heard the sound of her crying softly.

“Are you coming home?” She asked, her voice watery.

“Soon,” he assured.

“Good.” She took a shuddering breath. “I love you.”

“God, Doc, I love you. You have no idea,” he breathed.

“I can’t wrap my head around him not being a threat anymore,” she said. “I just…I didn’t think you’d get him this easily. I thought…well it doesn’t matter anymore. Come home as soon as you can, okay?”

“As soon as I can,” he promised.

* * *

 

The Tower was quiet as Clint made his way to his and Marta’s bedroom. Nodding his goodbye to Natasha as she disappeared into her own room, he finally got to their door and stood for a moment with his hand on the doorknob.

They had transferred Byer into Fury’s custody, but not before Clint had gotten in a nice left hook to help permanently wipe that smirk off of Byer’s face. Fury had raised an eyebrow at Byer’s black eye, but Clint had shrugged.

“He struggled,” he replied innocently. Now Byer was tucked away in some cell under Fury’s watch, and Clint was free to return to Marta. The room was dark, and he could see her curled up in bed.

As quietly as he could, so as not to wake her, he toed off his shoes and stripped down to a t-shirt and boxers and slid in the bed next to her. Marta stirred, and blinked open her eyes.

“Clint?” Her voice was warm and sleepy, and he reached over and pulled her to him.

“Hi, sweetheart. I didn’t mean to wake you,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay, better now,” she replied, running her hand through his short hair. “I didn’t think I’d see you until tomorrow.”

“I couldn’t wait that long,” he answered. When she turned, she winced, and he was reminded that she wasn’t completely healed yet, and he brushed a soft kiss to her lips. “Get some sleep, Doc, I’ll be here in the morning.”

“I’m okay,” she told him firmly. “I can the worry in your eyes. I’m okay.”

“Well, I want you to stay that way,” he shot back. Marta was silent for a moment, taking his hands and intertwining their fingers.

“I just can’t believe it’s all over,” her voice was soft. “I thought I’d always be outrunning Byer, always looking over my shoulder.”

“He’s not a threat to you anymore, Doc,” Clint said. “He’s not a threat to anyone.”

“Thank you,” Marta kissed him soundly. “For going there. For getting him. For everything.”

“Anytime,” he promised. “Seriously, though, get some sleep.”

“Yes, sir,” she giggled and he heard her breathing even out and he knew that she was fast asleep.


	11. With your fatalism and crooked face

Marta appeared at the breakfast table and slid in the seat next to Clint. He smiled at her, and grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze.

She was nearly completely healed, and Clint could finally breathe easier. Her sister had gone home, but Marta was planning a trip to see her in a few days. It was incredibly freeing, being able to simply buy a plane ticket and travel just like anyone else. Without having to worry about being caught on the wrong camera, or by the wrong person, or end up arrested or dead.

“Don’t worry about me while I’m gone,” Marta had said when she planned the trip. She gave him a sideways grin to let him know that she was teasing, but he knew that she was only half teasing. He worried when she was out of his sight. It was a habit that was hard to break. Worrying about her was as natural as breathing.

“Don’t you think I worry about you too?” Marta asked when he told her that. “You’re the one constantly throwing yourself into dangerous situations.”

“And you’re the one who got _shot_ , or did you forget about that?” He still had nightmares, ones that ended with her dying in his arms, or him getting to the hospital to find Tony, ashen, telling him that she had stopped breathing on the way and that he was so sorry. He would wake up, sweaty and terrified, and she would be curled up next to him, safe and very much alive. Sometimes, after a particularly horrific nightmare, he couldn’t resist and he woke her up with a desperate kiss and a breathless,

“Please don’t ever leave me.”

He would bury his head in the crook of her neck and she would whisper soothing words while she ran a hand through his hair. Clint was so beyond grateful that she was able to see her sister, that hiding was a thing of the past. Byer was safely in the custody of SHIELD, and the stubborn bastard had yet to be broken.

“I’ll die before I talk,” Byer had sneered. Clint had gone up to watch the first couple of interrogations, but Byer had held strong, and Clint found that he would rather be in the company of Marta and the rest of the group than sit and watch Byer refuse to answer any questions.

“We can arrange that,” Fury’s words were the last thing that Clint heard before he had heard enough, and when he came back, Marta didn’t ask how it had gone. He figured she was quite happy to not think about Eric Byer again, and Clint was beginning to understand why. Things slowly began to settle back to normal, or what passed as normal in the Tower, and normal included daily meals with whomever happened to be around at that time.

Breakfast though was Clint’s favorite, Marta shuffling to the table, her hair messy, and her robe cinched around her, with a scowl on her face until he slid the cup of black coffee in front of her. Marta was many things, but a morning person was not one of them.

“Good morning, Doc,” Steve spoke up when he looked up to see Marta sitting across from him. She mumbled some sort of response, Clint wasn’t sure what it was, or if it could be classified as English, but Steve just sort of grinned and accepted it as a normal greeting.

“Where’s the coffee?” Natasha slumped into her seat, and Marta pushed the pot towards her, and Natasha flashed her a grateful look.

“What time did you get back last night?” Pepper asked. Unlike her other two female companions, Pepper was already dressed, a Blackberry in her hand, and an easy smile as she accepted a plate from Bruce. “Tony never came back to bed. I think he’s been tinkering in his workshop on something new.”

“That’s always worrisome,” Bruce replied, his voice dry, but a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips.

“It was late,” Natasha shrugged. “I’m not sure what time it was. We all waited for Clint while he got bandaged up, so that took some time too.” Marta’s head snapped up and she whipped around to face Clint.

“What?” She asked. Clint glared at Natasha, who had the decency to look chagrined.

“It was nothing, Doc, just a couple of stitches,” he tried to reason with her, the murderous look she shot him clued him into the fact that she was in no mood to be reasonable. Pepper hid a smile in her coffee, knowing all too well exactly how Marta was feeling. Tony often tried to hide his various cuts and bruises, and she would see red when she discovered the new scars.

“Where? What happened?” Marta asked. “And don’t you dare lie to me, Clint Barton!” Natasha mouthed, I’m sorry, and he shook his head. Marta angry was never good. Marta angry and pre-coffee was downright terrifying. He picked up her hand and kissed her knuckles.

“Honestly, it’s just a couple of stitches, I didn’t want to wake you up and get you worried,” he explained.

He had been sore and in pain when he finally hobbled to their bed in the early hours of the morning. She had been curled up with arms wrapped around his pillow, a frown etched on her face even as she slept. It was amazing how much better he felt as soon as he saw her. He loved the feeling of coming home to her. But he didn’t want to wake her up, so he had simply pried the pillow out of her hand, slid under the covers and gently tugged her closer to him. She hadn’t woken, a testament to how exhausted she must have been, and instead buried her face in his chest, her fingers gripping his t-shirt. She didn’t sleep well when he was gone, but her face had relaxed instinctually as soon as he wrapped his arms around her and dropped a kiss to the top of her head.

Marta pursed her lips together, but thankfully, decided to let it drop.

“We’ll discuss this later,” she told him, and he knew that there was going to be a long conversation in his future. One which would involve yelling and his apologizing over and over, but, he brightened just thinking about it, one that would also involve making up, and he was a pro at making up.

They finished up breakfast, and Marta stormed off to get changed with a look that froze Clint in his place as he stood to follow her. He waited outside their bedroom door and walked Marta to the lab before he needed to be debriefed by Fury from the latest assignment. At least Clint had his injuries to thank for having the debriefing delayed, Fury had been unusually empathetic and told him to go get some sleep and they would meet in the morning.

“I _am_ sorry, sweetheart,” Clint said as they arrived at the door to the lab, breaking the silence that had accompanied them down to the lab. “It was just really late, and you were sleeping so peacefully, and it’s nothing, honestly. I’ll show you, just a graze and few stitches. Not even all that much blood loss…” Marta held up her hand to stop him from talking and digging himself in any deeper.

“I want to know when you’re hurt,” she said. “I don’t want you keeping that from me, trying to shield me from that.” She leaned up and kissed him softly. “Besides, if you don’t tell me where you’re hurting, how can I kiss and make it better?” She flashed him a smile and disappeared into the lab. Clint rocked back on his heels, content that she wasn’t all that angry with him, and went to find Fury to explain how terribly wrong the mission had gone the night before and probably get reamed out by Fury too.

“Just remember to tell him that it all went horribly wrong, until it didn’t,” had been Tony’s advice. “We still saved the day. That should count for something, shouldn’t it?” Clint wasn’t sure that Fury would see it that way. Marta certainly wasn’t. He knew that he was going to have to go over every detail with her later, until she was sure that he was okay. It was exactly what he was trying to avoid by not telling her about his close call.

Just as he had suspected, Marta was lying in bed reading over a medical journal when he came into their bedroom that evening. She hadn’t said much about it over dinner, had only made a snarky comment about Clint keeping things from her. A comment which made Tony snicker until Pepper shot him a look that dried up his laughter. But as soon as the bedroom door was closed behind him, Marta shot out of the bed and to his side.

“So, let’s see it,” she insisted, her hands on her hips.

“It’s really nothing,” Clint came towards her, taking her face in his hands and pressing a kiss to her lips.

“Let’s. See. It.” He sighed, but didn’t argue, and peeled off his shirt to show her the stitches. She gently removed the bandages and frowned and bit her lip as she studied them.

“They did a good job, shouldn’t scar too much.”

“I should have told you about it,” Clint grabbed her hand, and brought it to his lips.

“You would hate it if I kept an injury from you,” Marta told him, not quite ready to not be upset with him. The idea of Marta hurt, and not telling him about it, made his insides twist.

“You’re right,” he agreed. “I would _hate_ that.” It was Marta’s turn to sigh.

“I don’t want to be fighting when I leave to see Liv. I don’t want to be fighting at all,” she said.

“Are we fighting?” He kissed her again. “I thought we were moving on to making up.” Marta fought it, but he saw the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“You make it really hard to stay angry,” she told him, and he scooped her up in response, causing her to shriek.

“Good,” he replied.

* * *

Marta left for her sister’s and Clint made sure that he threw himself into as much action as he could find for those few days to keep his mind off of the fact that she was gone. He wanted to be as tired as possible when he stumbled into their empty room and into their empty bed.

“You’re moping,” Bruce observed. “She’s only gone for, what? Four days?”

“Five,” Clint shot back. He had been irritated the whole time she had been gone, and the others were steering clear of him. He decided to take his anger out on someone who actually deserved it, and arranged to be brought to SHIELD to visit with his old friend Byer.

Byer was in a cell, in isolation, and he looked up and smirked when he saw Clint approaching.

“Outcome 5, so nice of you to visit me,” Byer said, climbing to his feet. Clint was happy to note that Byer had looked as if he had seen better days. “What took you so long?”

“I have more important things to worry about than you,” Clint answered honestly. “You’re not my problem anymore.”

“Well, congratulations,” Byer’s smirk fell. “I was worried you weren’t going to show up. Your little doctor came to visit, and I was surprised when you weren’t with her.” Clint froze. His mind was racing and he wanted to ask Byer what he was talking about, when had Marta come? Why wasn’t he told? Who brought her? Until recently she had been still pretty weak, so someone must have helped her.

Natasha. It had to have been.

He’d kill her.

“She had so many questions,” Byer continued. “How could I sleep at night? How could I kill all those scientists? Or worse, how could I give you the orders that I did to kill all those poor people? She accused me of using intel I knew to be bad in order to manipulate you.” He shook his head and grinned at Clint. “She was always too smart for her own good.” Clint no longer cared. He was itching to get back to the Tower. Hadn’t they just had a fight because he kept a couple of stitches from her? And she was sitting on this the whole time? He would have brought her up here if she had asked. No, who was he kidding? He didn’t want her anywhere near Byer. Byer was scum, and Marta deserved to forget that he existed.

Without saying a word, Clint turned around and walked away. Byer shouted after him, but Clint remembered suddenly that he no longer had to listen to anything Byer said.


	12. With the daisies and the violet brocade

By the time Clint got back to the Tower, he was fuming.

For the first time he thought it was maybe a good thing that Marta wasn’t at home. He would have certainly said some things to her that he probably would have regretted when he cooled down.

He went to the gym first, and was in the middle of taking his aggression out on a punching bag when Tony appeared. He stood and watched Clint for a moment, smirking.

“Working out some anger problems there, Spanky?” Tony asked stepping into the room.

“I have a feeling I know who it was, but just to rule out all other possibilities, you didn’t by any chance take Marta up to see Byer did you?” Clint landed another punch. Recognition dawned on Tony.

“Oh, I get the Ali act now,” Tony answered. “No, it wasn’t me. But like you said, you knew that.”

“I don’t want her anywhere near him,” Clint seethed.

“I understand, really, I do,” Tony replied. Justin Hammer had threatened Pepper more than once, and even what Tony knew was a threat without much force behind it was enough for him to want to keep Justin as far away from her as possible. If God forbid, Pepper had been shot and hurt and Hammer had been the cause, either directly or indirectly? Well. Tony gave Clint credit for not killing Byer in Manila.

“I can’t believe she would go up there and not tell me,” Clint muttered.

“She still at her sister’s?” Tony asked.

“She gets back tomorrow,” Clint said.

“Are you going to call her?”

“I was letting myself calm down.” Clint punctuated that statement with one last hit. When he thought he could talk to Marta without blowing a gasket, he went up to their bedroom to call her.

She answered with a breathy, “I miss you so much,” which threw him off slightly.

“Why didn’t you tell me you went to see Byer?” He wasn’t sure how to ease into the conversation, so he didn’t even bother trying. He was met with silence on her end, and then a soft,

“Oh.” He closed his eyes and ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “Did Natasha finally break and tell you?”

“No,” but that did confirm his suspicions about Natasha.

“Then who? Oh, Byer. Byer told you.” He expected Marta to become defensive, argue with him about her reasons for going up there. But instead she was quiet, waiting for him to speak again.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Clint repeated.

“I knew it would upset you,” she answered. Then she let out a deep sigh. “I’m sorry, Clint, I really am. I wish I had never gone. I just…I needed to see him behind bars. I wanted to ask him why he didn’t just let us in peace when he knew we weren’t going to cause any trouble.”

“Did you?”

“Ask him? Yes.” She didn’t elaborate. Clint figured whatever Byer said to her wasn’t what she wanted to hear, but Clint wasn’t sure what she wanted to hear. Sorry? It wasn’t going to happen. He knew enough about Byer to know that Byer was convinced that he had been acting in the best interest of his country, and nothing Marta Shearing could say was going to change that. But Clint hated fighting with her. Hated it. And as much as he hated the idea of her up there without him, he knew her well enough to know that it was something she had to do, and she asked Natasha to take her because she knew Natasha would do it.

“I want you to tell me things. Even things that you think might upset me. I would have gone with you.” That wasn’t necessarily true, and he wouldn’t admit that out loud, but he knew from Marta’s soft snort that she didn’t believe him either. He would have argued with her, and she would have argued back. She was so stubborn, and he usually loved her fire, but sometimes it made his life harder. All he wanted to do was keep her safe, was that too much to ask?

“Okay,” she agreed. “And don’t be too hard on Natasha. It was my fault, Clint. Not hers. She didn’t want to take me.” It was his time to snort. Natasha didn’t do anything she didn’t want to.

“Hurry home, Doc,” he said softly.

“I’ll be home tomorrow,” she reminded him. “I love you.”

“I love you too, even when you drive me crazy,” he replied. She laughed, a sound that filled him up and made him bounce slightly on his feet. One more day, he reminded himself. She’ll be home in one more day.

* * *

 

“We have to go,” Steve announced as he pounded on Clint’s door a few hours later. “There’s a situation on the eastern border of Yemen.” Clint was on his feet in seconds, thankful for the first time that Marta wasn’t in bed next to him. When he had to leave her with a kiss and her eyes worried and a frown on her pretty face, those were the times he hated being an Avenger. He was out of the door in minutes, and found Tony sleepily being suited up.

“What’s going on?” Natasha asked coming into the hallway.

“We’re not sure,” Steve said. He tossed her a gun which she shoved in a holster.

“I hate these middle of the night missions,” Tony grumbled as the last of the armor clicked into place and he took off.

“Do we know anything? What we’re getting ourselves into here?” Clint asked. Steve shook his head.

“I know as much as you do,” he said apologetically. “Probably the usual.” The usual. Stockpile of weapons. Bad guys. Great.

“Let’s get this over with,” Clint muttered. The faster he went, the faster he got back.

* * *

Marta arrived home and took the elevator up to their living quarters. She had had a nice time at her sister’s, but she missed Clint and she was happy to be home.

Home. She smiled to herself. She was happy that she had a home. Somewhere stable, safe. It was almost more than she had allowed herself to hope for out on the run. She had been content just being with Clint. She hadn’t needed a nice house with a picket fence, she had just needed him. But she had to admit it was awfully nice to be able to come back to the same place, the same bed. To know that Clint didn’t need to sleep with a gun close by (although he did. Old habits die hard), and they were completely safe, wrapped up in blankets and each other.

She found Pepper sitting in the living room, typing away frantically on her Blackberry and biting her lip like she did when she was thinking hard. Marta felt her heart drop, and knew, _knew_ , that something was wrong.

“Pepper?” Marta asked, and Pepper’s head shot up. “What’s happened? What’s wrong?”

“They left for a mission in the middle of the night,” Pepper explained. Marta relaxed slightly. Pepper was just worried. She understood. She would be worried until Clint stepped back through the door and she had her arms around him. If they only left in the middle of the night, it wasn’t unusual for them to not be home yet. But Pepper wasn’t done. “Fury lost contact with them. Six hours ago.” And Marta had to sit down in the chair behind her because suddenly her legs felt shaky.

“Pepper,” Marta choked out.

“I know,” Pepper frowned and she reached forward and squeezed Marta’s hand. Six hours didn’t seem like a long time, but it was rare that they were all out of contact with SHIELD. No, not rare, it never happened. Something was wrong. Marta could feel it, she was certain of it.

And now she just had to sit and wait. 


	13. My air is not this time and space

It was bad.

Of that much Clint was sure, although he was a little fuzzy on the rest of the details.

Natasha was there, right next to him, her arms tied behind her and her head slumped onto her chest, and he spotted Tony, sans suit, in a similar position across from him in the dank, small room. It smelled like saltwater and urine, and he wondered where the hell they were. Were they still in Yemen? If so, he was adding Yemen to the list of places he’d prefer never to return to. He wasn’t sure where Steve or Bruce was, and he hoped, _please_ , that they weren’t also tied up somewhere. Or worse.

He was also not sure what went wrong. That was kind of a blur too. It was an ambush, but it wasn’t the first ambush they’d ever encountered. They always came out of it all right. Well. Almost always. His head hurt and his arm was going numb from where it was tightly pinned behind him, and all he could think about was Marta coming home and finding him gone. He was grateful that he had been able to say he loved her one last time, just in case he didn’t make it home. No, he shook the thought out of his head. They would make it home. He would make it back to her, and his plan when he got home was to pull her into his arms, into bed, and not leave it for days.

“Clint?” Natasha roused and called softly from her place across the room.

“Hey,” Clint answered tiredly. His head was pounding and he tried to do an inventory of his injuries, but it was hard to concentrate and he quit after he identified a concussion and some minor scrapes and a pretty major scrape that seemed to still be sluggishly bleeding.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m alive. You?”

“I’ve certainly been better,” Natasha replied. “Tony?”

“I hate Yemen,” Tony muttered.

“What happened?” Clint asked.

“Not sure,” Natasha replied. “I just remember a lot of noise and then a lot of pain.”

“Cap and Banner?” Tony asked hopefully.

“Fingers crossed somewhere trying to get us out,” Clint answered. He wiggled his fingers and looked around trying to figure out if there was a way out. A small window was above Tony, but it was barred. He hoped Marta was home, and safe, and not too worried about him. He hoped Bruce and Steve were working on getting them out of there. In the meantime, he would try to figure something out. He would make it back to her, or die trying.

“This sucks,” Tony whined and Clint had to agree.

“Tasha? You still have your heels on?” Clint asked. She gave him a grin and a nod and slipped her shoe off of her foot and kicked it the best she could over to him.

“This is not the time to get in touch with your feminine side,” Tony muttered, but Clint ignored him and picked up her heel. It was lethal, and it was sharp, and it would, he hoped, be able to cut through the zip ties currently tying his wrists together.

“Shut up Tony,” Natasha said, gritting her teeth as she worked on her own bindings. “Or we’ll leave you here.” Clint managed to wriggle one wrist free and heard Natasha’s cry of victory seconds before he got both his wrists free. He immediately crouched behind Tony and started working on his zip ties. He wasn’t sure what the next part of the plan was, but he was one step closer to being free. To being able to go home to Marta, and that was all that mattered.

* * *

Marta and Pepper had not left each other’s side, or the living room, in what felt like days. In reality, it had only been another few hours, but there was still no word from any of the team, and Marta felt her panic growing. Pepper had ordered in food, insisting that they eat, but it sat untouched by either on the coffee table, congealing and looking less appetizing by the minute.

“Tony’s going on some R and R when he gets home,” Pepper said as she ended her call with Rhodes and joined Marta again on the couch. “Non-negotiable.”

“Does Rhodes know anything?” Marta asked hopefully. They thought maybe Rhodes would have heard chatter on his end, but Pepper shook her head.

“He’s going to see what he can find out,” she answered.

“This waiting and not knowing anything is beyond frustrating,” Marta complained. Maybe it was all a misunderstanding. Maybe they had successfully completed the mission and gone to get some Indian food, turning off their communication devices and forgetting about everything for a while. It wasn’t impossible, but both Clint and Tony liked to check in with their significant others as soon as a mission ended. Particularly if it was a tough mission. Clint said hearing Marta’s voice grounded him, and she would imagine Tony felt the same way about Pepper.

Marta wrapped her arms around herself and stood up and rocked slightly on her heels. She hated the uncertainty. The waiting. The wondering. She just wanted him home, whole and safe and okay. It wasn’t asking for too much.

Pepper’s phone rang and Marta whipped her head around.

“Rhodes,” Pepper mouthed before answering. She nodded a couple of times, bit her lip like she did when she was listening intently, and then sighed and hung up the phone. “He knows nothing more than Fury. They were drawn into a fire fight and no one has heard anything from them since.” Marta sank back down onto the couch and twisted her hands together. The two sat in silence, both staring at their phones, willing them to ring with more information.

When Marta’s phone finally did ring, it made her jump, and she fumbled with the buttons.

“Hello?”

“Marta!” It was Steve, and he sounded far away. It wasn’t Clint, which would have been her first choice, but she would take what she could get.

“Steve!” Pepper jumped to her feet and rushed over. “What’s going on? Are you okay? Is everyone okay?”

“I’m okay, I’m with Bruce. We were separated from the others, and we’re still trying to find out where they took them, but Marta, I need you to listen very carefully to me. Are you with Pepper?”

“Yes, we’re in the Tower,” Marta answered, her eyebrows furrowed and she looked questioningly at Pepper.

“You need to leave,” Steve’s voice was calm, but firm. “Now, Marta. We think they might be coming, I think this is bigger than we thought it was, and they’re going to come for you and for Pepper. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I think you two need to get somewhere safe, and somewhere no one would think to find you. Go somewhere safe and then contact Fury, he’ll send a team to take you into SHIELD’s custody.”

“Pepper,” Marta spun around and found Pepper had drifted away, staring at one of the monitors JARVIS had displayed of the front lobby of the building. “Steve said we need to leave. We’re not safe. They’re coming, whoever they are, and…” she trailed off as Pepper turned around, her face pale and her eyes fearful.

“Marta,” Pepper said. “They’re already here.”


	14. And I keep me in a vacant lot

“Marta!” Steve shouted into the phone. “Get out of there!” Bruce’s eyes widened at the sound of Steve’s raised voice.

“Steve,” Marta’s voice was quiet and scared. “They’re already in the building. Pepper and I are going to hide and try to find a way out. I have to go.” And with that she hung up the phone leaving a frustrated Steve on the other end.

This day was not going well. Half of their team was missing, and now the girls were trapped in the Tower.

“Are the girls safe?” Bruce asked, and Steve shook his head slowly.

“They’re already there. They’re in the building,” and Bruce swore under his breath.

“Clint and Tony are going to have a field day with that information,” Bruce replied.

“What do we do now?” Steve asked.

“We try to find our missing team members and then hurry back as fast as we can to Pepper and Marta and pray we aren’t too late,” Bruce said with a confidence that he certainly didn’t feel. One thing at a time, he thought. First the rest of the Avengers, and then New York. One thing at a time.

* * *

Clint nodded at Natasha who began screaming and yelling and pounding her feet on the floor. He crouched near the door, the chair that he had been tied to only moments earlier poised above his head. Tony stood on the other side of the door, ready to pounce when it flew open. It did. It didn’t even take that long, which made Clint wonder if they were being kept somewhere where their captors would have preferred them to remain quiet.

“Hey!” The guy who burst through the door was huge, but Clint brought the chair down on his head and Tony dragged him inside the room, propping the door open with a shoe. Natasha quickly searched the man’s pockets and came up with a ring of keys and a gun, and Clint slid his shoe back on as the three escaped into an equally dark and dank hallway.

Clint slid along the wall, pausing only to stop to listen, and the three of them quietly and slowly made their way out of the building. It was easier than it should have been; Clint was only slightly worried that it hadn’t been too difficult to escape when they had reached the bottom floor and a door that he believed would lead to the outside. It made him wonder who these geniuses were that had somehow captured three of the Avengers.

Tony kicked open the door and the three of them ran out into the warm, humid night.

Clint had been right. They were being kept in a residential neighborhood, right by the water, and none of it was adding up.

“That was too easy,” Natasha spoke the thought that had been bouncing around Clint’s brain for the past few minutes.

“Maybe we’re just that good,” Tony shot back.

“No,” Clint replied. “She’s right. That was too easy.” But he wasn’t going to let himself worry about why that was too easy. He just wanted to go home.

Steve and Bruce found them only a couple of minutes later, the trio stumbling along the street, trying to figure out where they were and who had somehow gotten to them.

“You’re too late to rescue us. We went ahead and rescued ourselves, you’re welcome,” Tony smirked, but his smile dropped when he saw the look on Bruce’s face.

“What’s wrong?” Natasha asked, and Clint felt his insides tighten. He knew it wasn’t good. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good. Steve had a look of urgency, and Bruce kept trying to herd them back to where a vehicle was waiting for them.

“I called Marta,” Steve started. “I wanted to warn her and Pepper to get out of the Tower. Whoever had you, I think, we think,” he gestured back to him and Bruce, “you were just a decoy. A distraction.” Tony tensed beside Clint.

“Where is Pepper?” Tony asked.

“Did they get out of the Tower?” Natasha asked. Steve shook his head.

“We think they’re hiding, Marta and Pepper, in the Tower somewhere,” Bruce answered.

“We need to be there now,” Tony said. “Where’s my suit?”

“Gone? Destroyed? We were hoping you knew where your suit was,” Steve answered. They climbed into their aircraft and Tony swore.

“Let’s go,” Clint demanded. He tried to reassure himself. She was smart. Pepper was smart. He kept repeating that in his head like a mantra as they took off and headed back towards New York.

* * *

It was a good thing Marta wasn’t too claustrophobic, she mused as she rested her head back on the pillow of the small cot she was currently curled up on.

She and Pepper ran as quickly as possible to the stairwell, only to see men streaming up the stairs. Pepper had gestured to the safe room that Tony had insisted be built. Thank God for his paranoia, Marta thought.

The two of them had sprinted across the living room and behind the bar where the door was hidden. Pepper quickly punched in the code, her hands only slightly shaking when they heard the front door burst open. Pepper tugged open the door and Marta slipped inside, Pepper a step behind her, pulling the fake shelf of liquors closed just as the men started streaming in. The door slid shut behind the women, and Pepper rested her head on the steel door and let out a long breath.

“Is this room soundproof?” Marta whispered and Pepper nodded.

“Yes, and JARVIS?”

“Yes, ma’am,” his voice was reassuring and Marta felt relieved tears prick the corners of her eyes.

“Can you bring up surveillance?” The room was suddenly filled with screens showing all areas of the Towers, and Marta’s heart sank to see that they were truly trapped.

The safe room was not terribly big, but it was well stocked with food, water, and hard liquor. She stifled a smile at the bottles of wine and whiskey.

“There’s also condoms,” Pepper remarked, a tiny smile appearing on her face. “Tony said he was just covering all eventualities.” Marta snorted.

There were also two small cots, and Marta gratefully sank onto one of them.

“We should try to contact Fury, and Steve,” Marta spoke up. “Let them know where we are and what’s happening.” Pepper nodded. “What else should I know about this place?”

“There’s some guns,” Pepper pointed to a locked cabinet, “and a second door which leads out to a small patio. In case we can’t get out the same way we went in.”

“JARVIS? Can you please dial Steve’s number?” Marta asked. It wasn’t Steve who answered, but Tony, and his voice held an edge of panic.

“JARVIS?” Tony asked.

“It’s us,” Pepper said, and she let herself sag slightly with relief at the sound of Tony’s voice.

“Pep?”

“Marta?” It was Clint, and Marta leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

“Hi,” she answered.

“You okay?” Clint asked.

“Yeah, we’re okay.”

“Where are you?” That was Tony. He was looking at the same surveillance footage that was being broadcasted in the safe room, and he certainly didn’t like how many men had somehow gotten into the Tower.

“We made it to the safe room,” Pepper said. “The one near our living quarters.” Clint let out a relieved sigh, and Tony nodded a couple of times.

“Good, good girl,” he said. “Just stay where you are. We’ll get you out of there. We’re on our way back.”

“Okay,” Pepper answered.

“Do we know what they want? Besides us, obviously,” Marta asked.

“No, but we’re working on that,” Clint answered. “Doc, stay safe, okay? I love you.”

“Love you too,” she said softly, and she heard Pepper and Tony exchange similar words.

“We’re going to stay on the line until we get there,” Clint said.

“Feel free to pour yourselves a nice glass of bourbon,” Tony chimed in. “You deserve it.” There was a moment of silence, before Pepper’s eyes widened as she watched the monitors.

“You’re hurrying, right?” She asked, and Marta stood up to look and the blood drained out of her face.

“Yes, why? Pepper, what’s wrong?” Tony asked and Clint grabbed his arm with a tight grip and Tony swore under his breath. Whoever was inside the Tower must have somehow known that Marta and Pepper were still there. They were setting off small explosions and starting fires.

They were smoking them out.


	15. In the ivy and forget-me-nots

We need to leave,” Marta said, and Pepper agreed, leading the way to the second door that opened out onto a small alcove tucked into the side of the building.

Marta made the mistake of glancing down and immediately backed up again, pressing her back against the wall.

“Are you okay?” Pepper asked.

“Heights have never been my thing,” Marta answered. She could smell smoke and prayed that Clint hurried. She wasn’t sure how long they could stand out here on this small balcony. Pepper glanced in through the open door to look at the monitors. The fires were spreading, and the Tower was overrun with men in black masks, holding weapons and tearing the place apart to find something. It hadn’t occurred to her that the reason those men were in the building were to find her and Marta. She had simply assumed that they were there for another reason, but it was beginning to click.

Tony going missing had been a ploy, a distraction, a way to get keep him and the Avengers occupied while they came for their real target.

Marta gasped, and Pepper saw that one of the men had found one of the cameras and was quickly scribbling a message on a piece of paper.

“Dr. Shearing and Ms. Potts, we know you’re here,” Pepper read quietly. Marta took a deep breath and turned to face Pepper, her eyes wide. There was more scribbling and then another note. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

* * *

The ride back to New York was taking too long. Clint was pacing, Tony was pacing, and the rest of them were trying desperately to stay out of their way.

Pepper had hung up abruptly after encouraging Tony to hurry and saying something about fires and smoke and Clint wasn’t sure what was happening, but he knew that if he didn’t get to Marta immediately he might actually lose his mind.

This was what he was afraid of. This was exactly why he had kept her hidden for so long. But he also knew that he loved waking up next to her, and she was so incredibly grateful to the Avengers for clearing her name and allowing her to live her life again, and that wouldn’t have happened if he had kept her hidden, moving from hotel to hotel in all corners of the world. It was just frustrating, being unable to do anything while she was in danger. And she was in danger in their home, the one place that was supposed to be impenetrable.

“Try to get Pepper on the line again,” Tony demanded, and Pepper answered, sounding too terrified for Clint’s liking.

“They’re here for us, Tony,” Pepper said. She quickly explained about the cameras and the words being scribbled onto cardboard and anything else they could find.

“They said they’ll burn this place down before they let us out,” Marta reported, and Clint could hear the edge of panic in her voice.

“We’re almost there,” Clint said. “Doc, listen to me. Stay where you are, we’re almost there.”

“Why do they want us?” Marta asked, and Clint didn’t know exactly but he had a pretty good guess. There wasn’t anything Clint wouldn’t do to get Marta back safe, and knew that Tony felt the same way about Pepper. Clint was only able to do what he did because he knew Marta was safe, waiting for him to come home from saving the world.

“We’re approaching,” Natasha announced.

“There’s not enough room to land,” Steve said, as they hovered near the little patio where they could see Pepper and Marta waiting. “We need a way to land this thing and get to them.”

It was decided, after a few minutes of heated arguing, that Tony would first try to get to his suit and bring the women up to the waiting aircraft that way.

When they landed, Clint and Steve took the lead, trying to clear a path for Tony to get to his spare suits. Clint was not expecting the sheer number of intruders in the Tower, and the small fires that they had started were growing, the smoke making it difficult to aim his weapon.

Tony cried out, and Clint swore under his breath.

“You okay?” “I’m fine,” Tony insisted. “Just a flesh wound. JARVIS, a little help at any time now would be much appreciated.” Suddenly, parts of his suit came flying towards him, assembling around his body and Clint had never been so relieved to see Iron Man standing in all his glory.

“Get back to the plane!” Tony yelled. “I’ll get Pepper and Marta. Be ready to take off!”

* * *

 

The sound of Tony’s thrusters made both women jump to their feet and a small, relieved laugh came spilling out of Marta’s mouth.

“I’ve never been so happy to see that stupid suit,” Pepper muttered as Tony landed softly next to them.

“Pep,” Tony said, his faceplate sliding up. “You okay?”

“I’m fine, just get us out of here,” she demanded. She grabbed Marta’s hand, as Tony tucked his arm around the two of them and told them to hang on. Marta closed her eyes and pressed her face into the cold steel of Iron Man’s chest, clinging to both Pepper and Tony, and felt herself being lifted. She refused to open her eyes, refused to see how far up they were, and worried that Tony would be unable to carry both of them and fly at the same time. She didn’t open her eyes until she heard her name being called, Clint’s voice both frightened and relieved, and he was shooting arrows at men running towards their plane, as Tony pushed her up into the back, Pepper hot on her heels.

“Tasha! Go!” Steve yelled, and Tony pulled the back shut just as Natasha lifted the aircraft off the ground, the Tower burning furiously as they took off.

Marta felt herself being tugged into Clint’s arms, and she buried her face in his shirt, grasping bunches of it in her hands.

“You okay?” He murmured, as he ran a hand up and down her back and dropped his nose into her hair.

“Now? Yes, now I’m okay,” she answered finally. He kept his tight hold around her as he moved them to a more comfortable position, Marta curled up in his lap, her arms twined around his neck, his words soothing, attempting to calm her down. When he finally glanced up, Tony had lost the suit and had one arm around Pepper, as her head rested on his shoulder and their hands were tangled together in her lap.


End file.
